Iraq: The Human Drama

It is not necessary to use too much imagination to understand the magnitude of the
tragedy in human terms, if you take into account the almost identical scenes shown daily
on television where there is a war whose main clashes are in densely populated cities.

That is why the information on military and civilian casualties is strategic, because the
truth could provoke a condemnation of the war and a much louder demand for troop
withdrawal by the American people.

The manipulation of the information grows as does the Iraqi resistance; it has reached
the point that it is difficult to know where the truth lies.

A few figures are enough to illustrate this. The British medical magazine Lancet
recently disclosed findings indicating that since the beginning of the armed conflict, in
March 2003, there have been 650,000 Iraqi civilian casualties - very different from the
50,000 deaths reported by the mass media out of Washington.

The method used by Lancet in the research was reviewed by four independent professional
sources, which unanimously agreed with the publication.

In relation to the manipulation of US casualty figures, the official statistics are also
far different from the ones offered by various independent sources.

While on October 31 the Pentagon reported 2,813 military casualties and concealed the
number of wounded, other US sources reported 9,000 soldiers killed and a high number of
troops seriously injured.

US journalists are prohibited from Pentagon’s military hospitals in Europe and the United
States, especially now with only days away from mid-term elections.

The US censorship is also extended to the issue of torture victims, as there is evidence
of a high number of deaths resulting from the interrogation of detainees.

The inspection of remains of some of the so-called "enemies" of the US has also become a
"secret," since examinations can reveal the use of weapons prohibited by international
conventions; among those arms are white phosphorous and cluster bombs, as well as others
in the testing phase.

Nothing or very little is known about a war which began with the pretext of fighting
terrorism. Little is known about the increase in illnesses among the Iraqi population
caused by radiation, or the particular types of cancer and tumors developing. Moreover,
all of this has been extended to that nation’s child population, who are also suffering
the psychological effects of the war.

Such is this human drama; but after almost four years, no one can calculate its effects
and much less predict when and how it will end.