I am, and have been in favor of the war in Iraq since I first heard about it. When the US invaded Iraq in 2003 I was living in Mons, Belgium as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I heard almost nothing about it. I read no newspapers, had no access to the internet, and no one told me about it. I knew there was some kind of military operation going on involving the US and the mideast. And then, about three weeks later, while walking down a street in Mons towards my apartment, a guy walking towards us said loudly, (in French) 'hooray, congratulations, Americans, you won!' I'm still not sure if he was mocking us or serious; if he opposed the war or not.
I heard virtually nothing else about the war until much later when I was living in Nivelles, Belgium I believe. With my missionary companion I was knocking on doors to tell people about the good news of the Book of Mormon and the Restored Church of Jesus Christ, when an African immigrant let us in and the news was on the tv. It was reporting that Saddam had been found and captured from a hole just that morning. I felt good that a tyrant had been dethroned, but still did not understand the nature of the conflict or the politics involved.
Then, in June of 2004 I came home to America. I learned all that had happened. I have been since then for the war, and grateful for President Bush's wisdom and courage in strategically executing the war on terror, even if tactically he has not been the best war president ever. I’ve seen the bumper stickers and read the blogs saying “Bush lied – thousands died.” I’ve never seen someone say “Saddam lied – hundreds of thousands died." People rightly lament the loss of innocent life in Iraq. War is hell. I lament the loss of innocent life in Iraq before the war.
People see the numbers and hear on the news how people died from IEDs and suicide bombers in Iraq. Why do they not note the catastrophe that Saddam was for the Iraqi people?
I have come up with a theory.
People have a short term view of the world and see the immediate, but not the big picture.
I suspect that it is the kind of thinking that causes so many people to have been against NagasakiHiroshima.
The line of thinking goes something like this: conventional bombs may be necessary in wartime, but nukes are bad because they kill more people than conventional bombs. That's not true, they don't necessarily kill more people than conventional bombs, they kill more people per bomb than conventional bombs. In other words, the rate of deaths is different, but the absolute and total deaths caused by nukes is not necessarily more. I'm not here trying to argue whether the nukes were a good idea in WWII or not, I'm just comparing the line of thinking: just because something causes death at a faster rate and more spectacularly (like the '03 invasion) doesn't mean it kills more people than the alternative (Saddam's Baathist regime).
At first I thought the war was costing more lives per year than Saddam did. I thought the rate of deaths might be worse now, but always believed that the absolute total deaths would be worse with Saddam.
I presented my argument to a friend in a very convoluted way, and referenced the "real Iraq body count" which claims that only 225 Iraqi civilians have died by US soldiers in 2006.
It is a great article found here:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/IraqBodyCount2006.htm
My friend politely explained to me that because we invaded, we are ultimately responsible for all the deaths, whether caused by Americans or insurgents (because they are only there because of us)
"...it could be argued that the American invasion, however indirectly, is still ultimately responsible for the civilian deaths [in Iraq] caused by Islamic terrorism.”
- my friend Jeff
Rather than debate with him about whether this conclusion is correct, I agreed with it. It actually strengthens my conclusion that Iraq is better off without Saddam. Why?
Because if I follow his logic, it means that not only Saddam's democides , but the two wars he started, in 1980 and 1990, can include innocent Iraqis in my argument that Iraq is better off without Saddam - based only on the number of dead.
My premise is this:
The Iraqi people were worse off under Saddam than they would be if expunged of him through an American invasion - based solely on the number of people killed.
Yes, this is a trifle grim.
People have told me that Josef Stalin said “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” I do not wish to make the people of Iraq into statistics. But I do want that statistic to be as low as possible, and it seems the best way to do that has been to dethrone the Baathists.
Saddam’s body count
687,000
Breakdown:
Democides
180,000 Genocide of the Kurds in the 1980s. [A]
30,000 Shiites executed after the failed insurrection following the Gulf War [B]
1,500 People executed in 1997 for “political” reasons [C]
500 Journalists murdered throughout the 1990s [D]
Wars
375,000 Iraqis killed as a result of the Iran-Iraq war from 1980-1988 [E]
100,000 Iraqis killed as a result of the Iraq-Kuwait war (Gulf War) 1990-1991 [F]
Iraq War body count
151,000
From a report by the World Health Organization and the Iraqi government. (Jan 10, 2008). [G] I could have used the 80,000 to 88,000 figure from iraqbodycount.org, but I’ll use this higher number to show that I’m trying to be fair to Saddam.
So about four and a half times as many people have died because of Saddam Hussein.
Good riddance.
But I’m still too fair to Saddam
There are more deaths that can be attributed to Saddam Hussein. Here is what they are and why they weren’t included above.
- He allowed 500,000 to die from malnution and starvation during the 1990’s. [H] Why is that his fault? He built lavish palaces for himself during those years, and if he cared for his people he could have given them more food.
- I did not include this because Saddam didn’t actually murder them, he just allowed them to die. I didn’t feel I would be intellectually honest if I included this figure, but I do strongly believe that, were it not for Saddam, these people would still be alive. They are therefore worth mentioning.
- Saddam Hussein destroyed the southern Iraqi town of Albu 'Aysh and killed its inhabitants sometime between September 1998 and December 1999 (these were not Kurds). [I]
About this: “The regime was careful to destroy only houses and businesses, not government or military buildings. This stands in stark contrast to the precision air strikes of allied forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom, where great care is taken to hit strictly governmental and military targets.” [J]
- I did not include this because I do not have the actual numbers dead, but I’m sure it is in the thousands.
- Both the UN and Amnesty International labeled Iraq as the country with the most people who have disappeared and not been accounted for: 16,000 before 1999. [K]
- I did not include this because I cannot verify that the government caused the disappearances, only that the Iraqi government did not acknowledge the disappearances – pretty suspicious!
- Above I wrote that in 1997 Saddam executed 1,500 people for political reasons. Others were executed during every year of his reign for “political” reasons, and some famous ones can be cited (like Abu Nidal in 2002, and Riyadh Ibrahim in 1982 was chopped up and given to his wife), but totals have not yet come forth.
- I did not include this because no one credible (that I am aware of) has come forth with actual numbers of political executions for any year besides 1997
- During the rule of Saddam the government committed violence against women, horrifically tortured thousands (cutting off tongues is one example), held executions and repression of political opposition, had institutionalized abuse of children and withheld food from malnourished people. [L]
- I did not include these numbers because, although many lives have been permanently ruined by these things, they are not actual deaths, and so to be intellectually honest I cannot include any of these figures in my “body count argument.” That being said, I would be willing to bet that some of those who were tortured, including women who were brutally beaten, ended up dying, which is why I’m including this information at all.
- The number of 30,000 Shia dead is the low figure. The US State Department released the figure of 30,000 to 60,000. Also, the number of 375,000 for the Iran-Iraq war is the low figure. Estimates go up to 400,000.
- I did not use the number 60,000 or the number of 400,000 so that I would be more fair to Saddam.
What happens if I include all the above numbers of the “but I’m still too fair to Saddam” section?
Saddam’s Alternate Body Count
1,000,000 plus deaths
I’m guessing this is why some people actually use the number of one million when talking about how many Iraqis Saddam killed.
So the US invasion can be expressed as equaling a mere 10% of the amount of Iraqis who have died because of Saddam Hussein.
Good riddance.
One final note.
I did not include anywhere the deaths of non-Iraqis caused by Saddam (that’s not what my argument was about). Here’s the short version of those who have died who were not Iraqi:
- The Iraq-Iran war had 750,000 to 1,000,000 casualties on the Iranian side.
- Iraq funded and trained several terrorist organizations. These mostly killed non-Iraqis.
- There were 8,000 terrorists trained at Salman Pak from 1999 to 2002, meant to kill Iraqis and non-Iraqis alike.
And if we even look at the rate, then it is not that different: Here’s the math:
From 1980 through 2002 Saddam killed 687,000
687,000 divided by 23 years comes out to be that an average of 29,870 people were killed by Saddam each year.
From 2003 through 2007 about 151,000 Iraqis were killed.
151,000 divided by 5 years comes out to be that an average of 30,200 people were killed in the conflict each year.
Because the current conflict will certainly not last 23 years, Iraq is empirically better off – based on the number of Iraqis dead – now that we have invaded Iraq and dethroned Saddam Hussein.
And if you use my ‘alternate body count’ for Saddam and use the figure of 1,000,000 Iraqis killed from 1980 through 2002, then an average of 43,478 Iraqis were killed per year – compared to the 30,200 per year during the current conflict.
But then, someone pointed out to me that the World Health Organization is a known over-counter of numbers with a political agenda that has a record of releasing reports that turn out to be flawed.
I googled them with the word "criticism" and found several things they've said have been solidly refuted, including a report from the 1990s showing an inflation of deaths that was later turned out to be false.
But I'll still use their 151,000 figure because, even though I have empirical reason to believe it could be wrong, it is what is currently accepted.
It would be just as fair to use the 80,000 to 88,000 figure from iraqbodycount.org who is not a friend of the administration or war, and they are meticulously tracking every instance of death, rather than using cluster point surveys which is what the WHO did. They are more likely to be closer to the actual death toll.
But I'll be fair to Saddam and use the larger number.
And as far as the numbers of Saddam's deaths, they are most likely under-counted rather than over-counted like the invasion numbers. Why? because most of those figures were released before the invasion. We are in the process of translating hundreds of thousands of government documents from the pre-invasion era and likely we will find information that tells us how many people were executed in years other than 1997 for example.
The more I study this one single facet of the Baathist regime the more I am saddened for the Iraqi people and glad that his reign is ended.
Sources
A
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3782586
B
Between 30,000 to 60,000 Shia were executed after the insurrection following the Gulf War according to the US State Department. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-kengor040103.asp
C
In 1997 alone Saddam executed 1,500 people for “political” reasons.
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/04/98041403_tpo.html
D
500 journalists were executed during the 1990’s.
-Human Rights Alliance
E
On September 22,1980 Iraq invaded Iran over border disputes. Basically, Iran was in turmoil and Iraq wanted the Shatt al Arab area, so they invaded. The war lasted until 1988 and the cost in lives is estimated from 1,125,000 to 1,400,000.
F
On August 2, 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait. Six months later a coalition of 34 countries waged war on Iraq to liberate Kuwait. The casualties are generally estimated at 100,000 deaths (99% of those are Iraqis).
Note here, our involvement in Desert Storm can be argued to be similar to the role of the terrorists/insurgents in Iraq today. In Desert Storm the US were those who tried to kick out the invading Iraqis from Kuwait just as the insurgents are trying to kick out the invading US forces in Iraq. Therefore, if the deaths of the insurgents can be argued to be the fault of the US, then it is fair to argue that the deaths of Desert Storm are the fault of Iraq. In other words, we liberated Kuwait, and so it was a direct extension of the Iraq-Kuwait war, which was empirically the fault of Iraq.
G
From a report by the Word Health Organization and the Iraqi government.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7180055.stm
H
500,000 starved during the 1990s.
http://www.casi.org.uk/
I
Albu ‘Aysh town destroyed, inhabitants killed.
Iraq – Systematic Torture of Political Prisoners; Amnesty International; http://web.amnesty.org
J
Paul Kengor & Matt Sitman
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-kengor040103.asp
K
16,000 disappearances
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/iraqdecade.pdf
L
Office of the Press Secretary, Whitehouse, September 12, 2002
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912.html
