Today's (London) Times has a column by Stephen Pollard in which he criticizes the report by Iraqi Body Count and the Oxford Research Group that I mentioned yesterday. Some of the comments on yesterday's post were also critical of the report and this group.
Look, I know these people are anti-war. That's fine with me. It doesn't necessarily mean that their estimates are way off. As I said yesterday, I thought the estimate sounded reasonable given what we know (such as Saddam's strategy of using urban environments as "shields" for his heavy armaments and civilian clothed fighters). Saddam knew full well his army was no match for those ranged against him, so he played to the gallery by trying to maximize civilian casualties. That's a strategy that has been continued by the terrorists/insurgents/whatever.
What seems to bother some people is not so much the actual total reported, but that these people undertook this count at all. {If the total was all that was suspect, then we'd have competing estimates.} Well, I don't think we should try to deny the suffering of the Iraqi people in this war. War is atrocious and we shouldn't lose sight of that. However, I don't think it does any harm to repeat the truth that there was no peace for the Iraqi people in the 25 years Saddam ruled Iraq. They lived in perpetual fear of torture and death from his regime and his wars.
The goal now is to ensure that nothing like that arises in the new Iraq.
