Iraq
Death Rate Belies
US Claims Of Success
By
Kim Sengupta
07 January,
2008
The
Independent
The
death rate in Iraq in the past 12 months has been the second highest
in any year since the invasion, according to figures that appear to
contradict American claims that the troop "surge" has dramatically
reduced the level of violence across the country.
The research
comes from Iraq Body Count (IBC), which has extensive experience of
working in the country, and concludes that deaths outside Baghdad actually
rose until September.
However,
the group also concludes that the number of those killed in Baghdad,
where the majority of American reinforcements for surge operations were
deployed, has fallen significantly during the year.
IBC compiles
its data from official sources, including the Pentagon, and found that
between 22,586 and 24,159 civilian deaths were documented for 2007,
with the vast majority of those killed between January and August.
The most
lethal violence took place in Nineva, where the number of deaths rose
by 143 per cent. Baghdad on the other hand saw a decline of around 39
per cent after a drastic fall in numbers of deaths in the last three
months of the year.
The first
eight months of 2007 also saw the highest number of car-bombings in
the Iraq. The report claims that last year there were 20 explosive devices
that killed more than 50 civilians, compared with 12 bombings in 2006.
The number
of civilians killed during operations involving US forces in the past
12 months also rose, from between 544 and 623 in 2006 to between 868
and 1,326 in 2007. The report claims that most of these casualties were
linked to air strikes, in which 88 children were reported to have died.
Around 900
US and 47 British troops have also been killed in the past year. General
David Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq during the surge, insisted:
" We are focusing our energy on building on what coalition and
Iraqi troopers have accomplished in 2007. Success will not, however,
be akin to flipping on a light switch." But John Sloboda, the co-founder
of IBC, said the figures "show beyond any doubt that civil security
in Iraq remains in a parlous state".
"For
some 24,000 Iraqi civilians, and their families and friends, 2007 was
a year of devastating and irreparable tragedy," he added.
© 2008
Independent News and Media Limited
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