What Counts in Iraq

In Outlook this week, Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, wrote on civilian casualties in Iraq, touching on not just the high profile Haditha and Mahmudiyah, but also of the more common accidental killings at checkpoints, like one that took place earlier this year in Samarra. Many online seem eager for the conversation and note that while Bacevich catalogs some of the administration's missteps, he misses some key points (like, says one blogger, that the entire invasion was flawed to begin with) and doesn’t account for the need to prioritize the safety of American troops above all else.

Cori Dauber asks what the benefit would be if the military began to publicly count civilian deaths. Bacevich points out in his piece that the military was criticized for the Vietnam body counts and, as a result, hasn’t publicly counted civilian wartime deaths since then. Dauber notes that “the military stopped doing these counts in part because the accusation was that they ‘dehumanized’ the enemy, turning them into nothing more than numbers.” Dauber says she’s not sure that providing an accurate count would “resolve the accusations Bacevich makes about dehumanizing Iraqis or valuing them less.” Additionally, Dauber thinks Bacevich doesn’t sufficiently underscore the need to prioritize the lives of American soldiers. That necessary prioritization doesn’t mean, she says, that “we don’t value Iraqi lives, or that mistakes made in the way force protection was pursued imply a casualness regarding Iraqi lives.”

Vanity Fair contributor James Wolcott points to Bacevich’s piece as an “important piece…about the callow attitude towards civilian casualties that has helped make enemies of those we boast about having liberated.” He notes that the attitude, as described by Bacevich, is nothing new and “at least American policy is consistent, because we've been making the same mortal mistakes in Afghanistan, perhaps with even more roaring disregard.”

At Digby’s blog (which Wolcott calls “Digby the indispensable”) Bacevich inspired extensive commentary. The problem, Digby and his commenters agree, is that the invasion itself is a “bad decision from which everything else flows.” The lesson is clear to Digby: “an illegal, dishonest war of choice is doomed on its own terms. In the modern world outright conquest is impossible and anything else cannot be finessed with spin and wishful thinking.”

Bob Fertik at democrats.com takes up a different part of the discussion: Bacevich’s commentary that the failure to account for civilian casualties is part of the military’s characterization of Iraqis in “crass language, redolent with racist, ethnocentric connotations.” Fertik notes the Southern Poverty Law Center’s recent report on increasing numbers of white supremacists in the military. He notes that, taken together with Bacevich’s piece, the “incomprehensible un-American atrocities committed by some U.S. soldiers start to become comprehensible. And behind these atrocities lies a profound, hateful, and unquestioned racism that is no different from that of Nazi Germany.”

Some blogs note what was missing from Bacevich: an accounting of how many people died while Saddam Hussein was in power. Penraker says Saddam “was killing his own people at a very nice clip, perhaps 50-100,000 per year” and that the US-led invasion “should suggest to any rational person that a great number of lives are being saved today.” Penraker goes on to suggest that focusing on checkpoint killings disregards the “thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of Iraqis” who have passed through the checkpoints safely. The blogger’s view on the war is that the United States has “taken it upon ourselves to try to bring a semblance of peace and democracy to a place where cutting heads off is a common occurrence….This is a hard, hard mission fraught with difficulty.”

Bacevich and the bloggers who take up his discussion online certainly do not dispute that the war in Iraq is a hard mission, fraught with difficulty. They think that if the United States has taken it upon itself to bring "a semblance of peace and democracy" to Iraq, it should also account for the human cost.

Elsewhere, Outlook adapted part of Steven H. Miles' book “Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror (Random House). Miles was online earlier today, discussing the obligations of medical practitioners during war. Miles wrote candidly about how the incidents he describes in his book might affect military medicine as a whole. He was asked about how most medical personnel in the Army feel about the complicity in torture that he described in his book. Miles said: “One of the saddest and most infuriating things about this is that this event has tarnished the reputation and traditions of US military medicine. I have worked with our Armed Forces, most recently in tsunami wrecked Indonesia, also in the VA. Our soldiers are honorable and professional men and women. This policy framework was inherently corrupting, command accountability was wrecked, the damage to the abused, to the abusers, to our national reputation will be long lasting.”

By Rachel Dry | July 10, 2006; 4:08 PM ET
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Penraker says Saddam "was killing his own people at a very nice clip, perhaps 50-100,000 per year"

What a phony argument. This was true in the 1980s, when the West turned a blind eye on his Iraq's behaviour because the "real enemy" was Iran. It may have been true also in the beginning of the 1990s, during an attempted uprising after the first Gulf war: the West chose to intervene only with no-fly zones.

At the time Bush made his decision to attack Iraq, according to Amnesty International: "*Scores* of people, including possible prisoners of conscience, were executed during the year." (2001 - http://web.amnesty.org/web/ar2002.nsf/mde/iraq!Open)
(same in 2002 - http://web.amnesty.org/report2003/Irq-summary-eng )

That's a somewhere between 40 and 200, a far cry from 50,000. [Note: in 2000, AI wrote "*hundreds*", so from 200 to 2,000]

Unfortunately, there is no arguing that Iraq is a much more violent and dangerous place now than it was when Bush decided to launch his war.

Posted by: TinMan | July 11, 2006 12:37 PM

In response to TinMan, if it was acceptable that between 40 and 200 persons were executed as prisoners of conscience under Saddam, then why are we making a big deal about the civilians killed now? Has the value of Iraqi lives changed now that it's politically convenient? Also, the war was not "illegal" as the Left frequently and incorrectly cite. Unfortunately for all of us, the initiation of war was too legal.

Posted by: Scriber | July 11, 2006 01:34 PM

In response to Scriber, if it was OK to turn a blind eye and even support Saddam when he was gassing Iranians and kurds, why did it suddenly become taboo after a decade and a half ? The rights hypocris knows no bound

Posted by: Spacer | July 11, 2006 02:07 PM

In response to Spacer: Because the realist rationale of approaching the region changed significantly after 9/11. Not saying that a group in the GOP party were itching to "finish the job." However, I think what pushed this strategy over the top was the realization that the balance of power approach in the region was no longer in our national interest, because conditions there were producing the non-state actors like al-Qaeda.

No, the U.S. can't completely turn its back on pragmatic dealings with the region. See Saudi Arabia. Nor should it.

What you call "hypocrisy" I would call changing strategies under new conditions, trying to find the least worst alternative.

Posted by: Rhino | July 11, 2006 02:19 PM

i don't think Sadaam was killing anywhere near 50K people, about a 1000 seems reasonable. also i would suggest that a lot of them were criminals, such as exist in all societies. his sons were responsible for more of the wanton, irresponsible killing.

I think civilian deaths absolutely need to be counted. we need to minimize these deaths also, not just that to "our" military personnel. we are all human beings.

also, i wish people would stop crying about "the war being unethical in the first place". we all know that. it's spilt milk. let's focus on the future and suggest actions which will allow Iraq to become a prosperous state.

To that end, I wish we got better statistics about the Iraqi economy. Like tax revenue collected, oil revenue, electric/water infrastructure details, etc. That would be positive.

Posted by: cheesecake | July 11, 2006 02:20 PM

That doesn't make the Iraq campaign good policy, and this explanation certainly isn't the whole story. Just don't think the US "changing" positions due to changes on the ground is "hypocrisy."

Posted by: Rhino | July 11, 2006 02:21 PM

The question of how many people were
being done away with in Saddam Hussein
regime (per year) compared with now, in
the 'transition period', is not the only
issue as to whether the invasion was worth
it in human costs. There is also the
matter of the 1) unity of the state 2) the
sense of dignity as a people or nation
3) the matter of how millions of Iraqis
have now been suffering much worse, in
terms of lack of jobs as well as dignity
especially if Baathists or even Sunnis
3) the widespread anarchy 4) the lack of
sufficient water and electricity 5) the
loss of the whole core of technically-adept
people, who were mostly Baathists or at
least Sunnis , out of work and also leaving
or in the process of trying to leave Iraq
in search of a better life, or at least
one like they had enjoyed under Saddam
Hussein 6) the question of general discontent
with the new Constitution, insofar as it
does not accord the same rights to the
Baathists, beyond even being disallowed
to a great degree, if not by statute
directly, then because of the new
governmental setup itself 7) seeing
the new government as having been made
purposefully to the liking of the
Americans and other Coalition governments
instead of being more wholly in keeping
with what the Iraqi people would have
liked to have moved toward in lieu of any excessively dictatorial government.
It is time to emphasize the
betterment of the entire nation of Iraq,
not one group against the other.
As long as the idea Saddam Hussein's
regime was totally bad, then the entire
group of Sunnis (Henry Kissinger was
reported to have said at one time they
were actually a majority), are antagonized,
and of course there can be no peace or
unity. The Constitution must be amended
so as, contrary to what it says now,
even 'Saddamists' could be part of the
new government. Some sort of amnesty
or probationary period that holds out
some hope even for 'adamant' Saddamists,
could alleviate the terrible strife that
now has resulted. Some sort of
mutual forgiveness is in order, and
America should be doing now what can
promote this, and never the opposite.

Posted by: R. Karch | July 11, 2006 03:02 PM

Congress granted the president the freedom to use "All necessary measures" to prevent Saddam from getting the bomb. This does not make the invasion legal.

There was no UN security council resolution authorizing force. Resolution 1221 MAY have authorized force IF Iraq was found to be in violation of it (or may have simply authorized a vote in the security council on the use of force). However Hanx Blix report did not find Iraq in violation (because no weapons were found), it mostly detailed how Iraq could be more convincing about its lack of weapons.

The constitution states that external treaties will be treated as the highest law in the land - and this includes most especially the UN charter. The UN charter prohibits national military in all cases except self defence unless it is specifically authorized by the security council. Conducting aggressive war is in fact the primary and defining war crime.

The Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war essentially attempts to bring what would otherwise be considered aggressive war under the umbrella of self defence. This is already legally dubious, since the UN definition of what constitutes self defence is deliberately very limited. In the case of Iraq, the total failure to produce any weapons of mass destruction - hence any proof that pre-emption was necessary - hence any evidence that there was ever a military threat to the United States.

Even if Congress had outright declared war, this does not nullify international law and the Constitutions recognition of it. However, as Congress authorized Bush to use "all necessary measures", and since there was never any actual threat, no measures were necessary. The proper response to the "threat" was already being carried out under UN auspices (ie, sanctions, weapons inspections, etc)

In short, the invasion was illegal, and Bush is a war criminal for ordering it, both under international and American law.

Ironically, the occupation itself is not illegal, because the UN voted to allow the US and Britain to be the occupying powers. However the post-facto legalization of the occupation does not remove the original crime of invasion.

Posted by: Paul | July 12, 2006 02:20 AM

We have lost the war in Iraq. 70% of Iraqui's feel it's justified to kill Americans as a form of resistance and 80% want the occupation to end. We have lost the "hearts and minds" of the people of Iraq. I was in Vietnam in 1970 and saw the increasing hatred the South Vietnamese had for US soldiers and the racist attitudes the soldiers held towards the Vietnamese. The ranks of the Viet Cong grew. This is going to keep happening in Iraq and the atrocities will increase along with the insurgents

Posted by: Robb | July 12, 2006 08:21 AM

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