Gość: wg/AP
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10.12.03, 18:47
AP: Iraq to Stop Counting Civilian Dead
2 hours, 11 minutes ago
By NIKO PRICE, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq (news - web sites)'s Health Ministry has ordered a halt
to a count of civilians killed during the war and told its statistics
department not to release figures compiled so far, the official who oversaw
the count told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
AP Photo
The order was relayed by the ministry's director of planning, Dr. Nazar
Shabandar, but the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which oversees
the ministry, also wanted the counting to stop, said Dr. Nagham Mohsen, the
head of the ministry's statistics department.
"We have stopped the collection of this information because our minister
didn't agree with it," she said, adding: "The CPA doesn't want this to be
done."
A spokesman for the CPA had no immediate response.
The U.S. and British militaries don't count civilian casualties from their
wars, saying only that they try to minimize civilian deaths.
A major investigation of Iraq's wartime civilian casualties was compiled by
The Associated Press, which documented the deaths of 3,240 civilians between
March 20 and April 20. That investigation, conducted in May and June,
surveyed about half of Iraq's hospitals, and reported that the real number of
civilian deaths was sure to be much higher.
The Health Ministry's count, based on records of all hospitals, promised to
be more complete.
Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime fell April 9, and President Bush
(news - web sites) declared major combat operations over on May 1.
The ministry began its survey at the end of July, when shaky nationwide
communication links began to improve. It sent letters to all hospitals and
clinics in Iraq, asking them to send back details of civilians killed or
wounded in the war.
Many hospitals responded with statistics, Mohsen said, but last month
Shabinder summoned her and told her that the minister, Dr. Khodeir Abbas,
wanted the count halted. He also told her not to release the partial
information she had already collected, she said.
"He told me, `You should move far away from this subject,'" Mohsen said. "I
don't know why."
Shabandar's office said he was attending a conference in Egypt and wouldn't
return for two weeks. Abbas' secretary said he, too, was out of the country
and would return in late December.
The coalition spokesman said officials who direct the Health Ministry weren't
immediately available for comment.
Mohsen insisted that despite communications that remain poor and incomplete
record-keeping by some hospitals, the statistics she received indicated that
a significant count could have been completed.
"I could do it if the CPA and our minister agree that I can," she said in an
interview in English.
Under Saddam's government, the ministry counted 1,196 civilian deaths during
the war, but was forced to stop as U.S. and British forces overran southern
Iraqi cities. Over the summer, the ministry compiled more figures that had
been sent in previously, reaching a total of 1,764.
But officials said those numbers account for only a small number of the
hospitals in Iraq, and none provided statistics through the end of the war.
The number of U.S. soldiers killed in the war is well documented. The
Pentagon (news - web sites) says 115 American military personnel were killed
in combat from the start of the war to May 1, when President Bush declared
major combat over, and 195 since.
Iraq kept meticulous records of its soldiers killed in action but never
released them publicly. Military doctors have said the Iraqi military
kept "perfect" records, but burned them as the war wound down.
___
Niko Price is correspondent-at-large for The Associated Press.
