Int'l doctors' group blast official toll of Iraqi civilian dead

A Filipino protestor displays a placard outside the US embassy in Manila yesterday. The demonstrators asked for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq during the campaign titled "100 Filipinos against the war in Iraq". PHOTO: AFP

Their statement is published this Saturday in the weekly British Medical Journal (BMJ) as the second anniversary of the war looms on March 20.

It marks a fresh attempt by medical campaigners to establish the number of Iraqi civilian casualties after a rough estimate of 100,000 dead, made by epidemiologists last October, was brushed aside by the British government.

"Monitoring casualties is a humanitarian imperative," the statement said.

"Understanding the causes of death is a core public-health responsibility, nationally and internationally.

"Yet neither the public, nor we as public-health professionals, are able to obtain validated, reliable information about the extent of mortality and morbidity since the invasion of Iraq."

The statement is signed by 23 leading specialists from five countries (the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and Spain), led by Klim McPherson, a visiting professor of epidemiology at the University of Oxford.

The doctors pour scorn on the sole official toll, compiled by the Iraqi ministry of health.

This lists 3,853 civilian deaths and 15,517 injuries during the first six months of the war, the BMJ said separately in a news report.

The signatories complained that the ministry is "likely seriously to underestimate" the toll, as it only includes violence-related deaths that are officially reported through the health system, nor mortality from non-violent causes.