Saddam Hussein killed between 150,000 and 340,000 Iraqis from 1979

[Bouncy Ball]

to 2003. That's 24 years. So, on average, between 6250 and 14,166 per year.

We invaded and attacked Iraq on March 19, 2003, and have been there ever since, for a total of just over 21 months. In that time, the British medical journal Lancet has estimated we have killed approximately 98,000 Iraqi civilians (this does not include Iraqi soldiers fighting against the US, but only civilians).

That averages out, if we assume 24 months instead of 21, to 49,000 civilians per year that we have killed.

This is a recent article in Time with more information.
http://www.time.com/time/columnist/karon/article/0,9565...

Everytime I hear someone try to justify our actions in Iraq by mentioning Saddam Hussein's atrocities to the Iraqis, I nod. I do not try to dismiss them; they were heinous.

But our atrocities seem to be far worse. At this rate, in just 12-14 more months, we will MATCH the lower number of Iraqis killed by Hussein in 24 years. Three years to kill as many as he did in 24 years. Both actions are wrong. Hussein was wrong to kill his own people, to torment and oppress the Iraqi people. He was a harsh dictator, to make an understatement.

But we who call ourselves the beacon of freedom and independence have caused more death and misery in a shorter time than Hussein could have ever imagined.

Who is the bad guy now?

(Feel free to email the body of this text to anyone you feel needs a little eye-opening exercise....)

[iamtechus]

1. Hard to believe without proof

"Saddam Hussein killed between 150,000 and 340,000 Iraqis"

Says who?

[Bouncy Ball]

2. Says a hell of a lot of people.

You don't believe he killed that many Iraqis?

Check this out: http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/hussein.htm

This guy included Iraqi soldiers in the number, as well.

It's common knowledge that Hussein had many, many Iraqis killed in his time in power, or didn't you know that?

[LynnTheDem]

4. It's common propaganda.

And now even the Human Rights orgs say their "200,000-300,000" figures are "vastly over-inflated".

Included in those "200,000+" figures are the thousands killed by the Shia uprisings, the thousands killed by the Kurds, the thousands of Kurds killed by the Turks, and the many tens of thousands killed by US forces in 1991.

How many Iraqis has Hussein's government "disappeared" in the past decade?

HRW, AI and bush's website say 14,674.

I wonder how many Americans went missing in the USA during those same 10 years.

Hussein = ruthless dictator? You bet. Think anything less could have controlled Iraq for 30 years? We're destroying entire cities and can't control Iraq for 30 months.

And the US-appointed puppet Allawi was a CIA-sponsored terrorist who did car bombings in Iraq.

(and we're not supposed to mention those 100,000+ Iraqi civilians bush has caused the deaths of)

I think we're going to find out that in fact HRW etc are correct; the "common knowledge" of "150,000=300,000" figure is vasty over-inflated.

[Bouncy Ball]

13. Wow

If the common knowledge figure of 150K to 300K Iraqi civilians killed by Hussein is vastly overinflated, that's even worse for what we have done in 21 months by comparison.

:cry:

[LynnTheDem]

18. It was just this week that several HR groups spoke about the numbers

being "vasty over-inflated" and that they would be adjusting their figures accordingly; someone posted an article about it Monday or yesterday.

Of course I can't find it :eyes: but that could be coz I'm so sleepy I can barely see my 'puter screen. :D I'll look for the article tomorrow if no one else finds it first.

What I still can't get my mind around is that we...AMERICA...INVADED a country! I mean that's what HITLER did to Poland! WE don't DO that sort of thing! America doesn't INVADE countries!

And AMERICA NEVER EVER INVADES a country that hadn't been doing a damn thing to anyone, wasn't a threat to anyone, wasn't threatening anyone, and wasn't even as a last resort!

But we did.

Germany still suffers guilt for their invasions; how long will America? How the hell will we EVER live this one down. :(

[bush_is_wacko]

20. Amerikkka now invades countries.

The America we remember doesn't exist anymore except in the households of those of us who regularly try to recreate it for our children. Funny thing is, I don't think my kids are even buying it anymore.

[Supersedeas]

41. you will never get such a comparison from the MSM -- Rove smiles

[iamtechus]

8. PM admits graves claim 'untrue'

Much bullshit has been spread by the Bushes, Blair and Chalabi about the evil Saddam. It is best not to take anything you hear or read at face value.
--------------------------------------
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday July 18, 2004
The Observer

Downing Street has admitted to The Observer that repeated claims by Tony Blair that '400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves' is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses have so far been uncovered.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1263901,00.html

[Bouncy Ball]

12. The 150,000 number

over the course of 24 years, was pretty conservative. If it is even lower than that, so be it. Just makes the comparison between the number of Iraqi civilians we have killed in 21 months and the Iraqi civilians Hussein killed in 24 years that much starker.

Which proves my point even more re: who is the real bad guy?

[WI_DEM]

38. Isn't it possible to be against Bush's war without being supportive

of Hussein who many independent nations, including some of those which didn't support Bush's war, believe Saddam to be a mass murderer of his own people. Remember our WW2 allie--Stalin? he did the same kind of thing.

[whistle]

3. In the same period, how many "terrorists" have been killed,

...captured and brought to justice? These would be the terrorists who were either part of the original 9-11 group who planned, organized and executed the air line hi-jackings and destruction of 3,000 plus lives on that day? I'm sorry but the vast majority of Iraqi civilians who have died were not the threat to the U.S. that our president and his war cabinet want us to believe they are. These are the acts of war criminals and crimes against humanity.

[LynnTheDem]

6. NONE of the Iraqis were a threat to us.

And NO Iraqis were involved in the 911 attacks.

[livinginphotographs]

5. But when 'murikans kill, it's for liberation.

n/r

[paulk]

7. You left out the 1.5 million killed

in the Iran/Iraq war, started by Hussein. There was also those killed in the invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent "Desert Storm" fatalities.

If you feel the need to have a serious discussion about who is the more heinous "bad guy", you must include these numbers.

[LynnTheDem]

9. Iran-Iraq war wasn't started by Hussein.

That was another "history revisionism" by bushCartel.

Iran publicly announced their intentions of overthrowing Saddam's regime for months before the start of the Iran-Iraq war.

Iran bombed an Iraqi university, killing and wounding many students; Iran carried out some 25 assassination attempts (some successful) on various of Saddam's government members.

Iran gave the Kurds money & equipment to use to overthrow Saddam's regime. Iran then bombed several of Iraq's border towns, killing hundreds of civilians. The US Pentagon's own report talks about the many attempts Saddam made for a diplomatic solution with Iran; each of which Iran publicly refused. Saddam was secular, Iran wanted Iraq to be fundamental Islamist.

The Iranian bombing of the Iraqi border towns was the actual start of the war, although the USA calls the start the day Iraq attacked Iran back.

If Canada publily announced intentions to overthrow the Bush regime, tried to assassinate members of Bush & the Bush regime, and bombed US border towns, you can be sure the USA would attack Canada and equally sure America would NOT be calling their attack "unprovoked".

Iran-Iraq war

1980 4 September - Iran shells Iraqi border towns (Iraq considers this as the start of the Iran/Iraq war).

1980 17 September - Iraq abrogates the 1975 treaty with Iran. The U.S. opposes any Security Council action to condemn the invasion. U.S. soon removes Iraq from its list of nations supporting terrorism and allows U.S. arms to be transferred to Iraq. U.S. provides intelligence information to Iraq.

1980 22 September - Iraq attacks Iranian air bases.

1980 23 September - Iran bombs Iraqi military and economic targets.

1981 7 June - Israel attacks an Iraqi nuclear research centre at Tuwaythah near Baghdad.

1984 U.S. restores diplomatic relations with Iraq.

1987 U.S. sends its navy into the Persian Gulf, taking Iraq's side; a U.S. ship shoots down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing 290.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/737483.stm

Also read:

US Army War College:
http://www.ndu.edu/nwc/writing/AY01/5602/SeminarO5602BestPaper.pdf

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1985/SRE.htm

[paulk]

19. If you really want to stretch it

you could go all the way back to the 1639 peace treaty between the Ottoman Empire and Persia, which failed to resolve disputes over the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, as this was the reason claimed by Hussein for the Iraqi air and land invasion on 9/22/80, a date that all historians, not just the "BushCartel", give as the start of the war.

So - are you saying that Hussein, instead of using diplomatic means to avoid war, was justified in invading Iran? Would you justify Bush's invasion of Iraq using the same reasoning?

[LynnTheDem]

25. If IRAQ bombed US border towns, then of course US would be justified!

IRAN BOMBED IRAQI BORDER TOWNS.

IRAM BOMBED BASRA UNIVERSITY.

IRAN ASSASSINATED IRAQI GOVT OFFICIALS.

IRAN PUBLICLY ANNOUNCED THEIR INTENT to overthrow Iraq's government.

OF COURSE the USA would be justified in attacking Iraq IF Iraq had done the above to the USA.

Or if CANADA were to do the above to the USA.

Are YOU saying if CANADA BOMBED US BORDER TOWNS, the USA would NOT be justified in attacking Canada???!!

[paulk]

33. No, Iraq SAID Iran did these things

Much like Bush SAID Iraq had WMD.

And you still haven't addressed the main point -

Are you really saying that a military invasion (that cost the lives of 1.5 million people) is a more proper course to take than trying to solve the differences between Iran and Iraq diplomatically?

It sounds like you're endorsing the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war here.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

35. Sounds like here was nothing preemptive about Iraq's action

if Iran had indeed done all those things. Sounds like a more defensive action if you ask me.

As for the original intent here- I say we just changed the players- same old misery and death being perpetrated on Iraq, just different looters and executioners.

[paulk]

39. The argument can be made that Hussein's actions were

preemptive, defensive, or aggressive. That's the point, really. If you put yourself in the position of defending Hussein, especially if you're trying to draw some kind of parallel between his actions and Bush's, you will end up looking foolish. Hussein is no more defensible than Bush is.

[LynnTheDem]

43. Ummm nooo dear...in FACT Iran DID DO all that and if you hop down to

your local library and root thru the newspaper archives at the time you can read Iran's OWN STATEMENTS about the attacks IRAN perpetrated against Iraq.

Wow. You're the very first person I've ever heard say the Iranian attacks on Iraq never happened.

By the way, if you bother to do some research, you'll discover (as I posted in my prior post) that IN FACT Saddam Hussein tried DIPLOMACY several times with Iran and Iran PUBLICLY refused.

Sounds like you've been drinking some koolaid. ;)

LTC Karla Torrez, USA and Lt Col Vincent Difronzo, USAF - "The Iran-Iraq War: Exceeding Means"

Therefore, the Ayatollah’s support for Shia unrest and call for Saddam’s overthrow was both a direct violation of that agreement and an acute threat to Iraq.

The road that led to Saddam’s initiation of war was full of early diplomatic and domestic attempts to subdue the Iraqi unrest and ensure peace with Iran.

On the other hand, Saddam’s attempt to reduce hostilities with Iran failed. In July 1979, Saddam reiterated interest in establishing close relations with Iran “based on mutual respect and non-interference in internal affairs.” This was rebuffed by the Ayatollah.

Again taking the initiative, Saddam asked to visit Tehran in August of 1979, but the request was denied by the Iranian leadership. Therefore, it appears the Iraqi diplomacy door to Iran was closed early in Ayatollah’s rule.

http://www.ndu.edu/library/n2/n015602O.pdf

[Bouncy Ball]

10. I left those out on purpose.

Because I was talking about IRAQIS killed, not Iranians (there would be no parallel to us, as we are not fighting Iran and killing Iranians in Iran at the present moment) and furthermore, I was talking about Iraqi CIVILIANS killed.

I included only Iraqi civilians for both Hussein's number AND for our number.

That means it is a parallel analogy. Without parallels you cannot make an analogy. You must compare apples to apples.

[LynnTheDem]

14. But you're using

figures that the various human rights groups have already admitted are "vastly over-inflated" and even bush himself now says Hussein killed "thousands" rather than the "millions" and then "hundreds of thousands" he used to chant.

And we'll never be able to sort out how many thousands were those killed by the Shia, the Kurds, the Turks, and the US forces.

So it's all moot, really. Other than the fact that bush has caused the deaths of many many many Iraqi civilians for oil. Something the US State Media, of course, won't bother mentioning.

[Bouncy Ball]

16. You have good points.

I thought the 150K figure over 24 years was fairly conservative. Had no idea it there was any chance even that was overinflated.

I wanted to draw a comparison for the purpose of this horrific "argument" I hear re: "But Saddam Hussein had SO many Iraqis killed!!" Yeah now we have, too, possibly more than him!

Guess I could have just done it in those two sentences above!

Oh and see the Time article link (working, I believe, in a post below) for an analysis of your point that the media just isn't paying attention to Iraqi deaths.

[LynnTheDem]

17. And who'da thunk 4 years ago we'd be having such a convo at all! :(

Some US State Media are mentioning the 100,000 dead, I admit; but compare that coverage to the current tsunami coverage.

2600 US dead on 911; 3 years coverage & still used by bushCartel to excuse everything they do.

But:

1300+ troops dead, 10,000+ troops badly wounded in bush's war of aggression by CHOICE, and the US State Media does their best to keep that all hushed up.

100,000+ Iraqi civs dead in bush's war of aggression by CHOICE, and the US State Media barely stirs.

Corpses for political purposes. :(

[paulk]

21. Hussein is still responsible for those deaths, IMO

and dead is dead, not apples and oranges.

BTW, the 100,000 civilians killed by the US is no more reliable of a number than the 350,000 killed by Hussein. They are both estimates. We may never know the true numbers in either case.

[Bouncy Ball]

22. Of course they are estimates

but they are the best estimates we have.

And I was right to leave out the NON-civilian deaths because I was not including NON-civilian deaths in the US number killed, either.

If you want to, go find the numbers that we have killed of Iraqis TOTAL (civilian and soldier) and then get Hussein's total and compare them side by side.

The undeniable fact of the matter is that we should NEVER have been killing Iraqis in the first place and we shouldn't be killing them now.

Do you deny that?

[paulk]

23. regarding the "best" estimates

I share this poster's concerns about the Lancet numbers -

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2881806#2882100

The numbers I have seen for civilians murdered by Hussein's regime are in the area of 300,000. A google search will bring up numerous cites, from many different sources. As for Hussein's atrocities, they are well documented. Proof of the genocide of the Kurds and the marsh Shia are easy to find on the web. Accounts of summary execution of prisoners to clear prison space. Etc., etc. When you try to weigh Hussein's 23 years of brutishness against Bush's, there aren't many people who will take your "Bush has killed as many as Hussein" argument seriously.

As for your question - this discussion was not about whether our invasion of Iraq was justified...

[Bouncy Ball]

24. Actually

I assumed anyone on DU would agree our invation of Iraq is not justified.

How do you feel about one Iraqi civilian killed by the US?

[paulk]

37. Your assumptions about my feelings on the invasion of Iraq

have nothing to do with the subject of this thread, and are a cheap tactic on your part in an attempt to discredit.

[soothsayer]

26. Kuwait was slant drilling oil (using US equipment to do so)

That's another war that got pinned on Saddam.

I for one have never believed those hyped up numbers. Just more politickin (read: lying, to make someone a boogedy boogedy one dimensional evil figure you'll feel good about deposing)

[libertad]

29. Yes, why does everyone ignore that fact.

(about the slant drilling)

[soothsayer]

32. dunno. In fact, didn't Saddam appeal to some kind of court

about it, or got a blessing from the US or somewhere to defend his oil against Kuwait?

[paulk]

36. yes, Kuwait was slant drilling -

and Hussein even went to the UN and complained about it.

But that still doesn't justify his invasion and subsequent annexation of Kuwait as a province of Iraq, IMHO. Think about what you're saying - that the use of military force, rather than diplomacy, is justifiable in this situation. That's a slippery slope - it leads right down to justifying Bush's invasion of Iraq.

[LynnTheDem]

44. Kuwait was caught last year slant-drilling again; US forces caught them

There were one or two tiny blurbs about it in the US StenoMedia and then down the Memory Hole it went.

[Skittles]

11. LINK NOT WORKING

nt

[Bouncy Ball]

15. First four paragraphs

and let's try that link again!

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/karon/article/0,9565,933405,00.html

Fingers crossed that will work, I typed it in instead of cutting and pasting.

Wednesday, Dec. 08, 2004
Last month media coverage of Iraq was dominated by the stressed out Marine in a Fallujah mosque unfortunate enough to be caught on camera shooting dead an apparently unarmed and wounded man. That event was all over the national media, with plenty of hand-wringing about combat stress and rules of war to remind us that this was not the way America behaves at war; this was a painful transgression. U.S. ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte even took the rare step of publicly expressing America's regret over the shooting, although there was also widespread support for the Marine shooter in the domestic media.

But even as the killing of a single Iraqi, purported to be an insurgent, in a Fallujah mosque dominated almost a week of U.S. media coverage, the claim in the report in the respected British medical journal Lancet that the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the U.S. invasion may number as many as 98,000 rated hardly a mention even in news outlets that had been relatively critical of the war. The Lancet study, of course, was a scientific guesstimate based on incomplete data — the U.S. and its coalition partners have never kept a record of Iraqi civilian deaths. The Economist recently provided its own, more conservative estimate: 40,000 civilians dead.

A significantly lower total is reported by the organization Iraq Bodycount, which has tabulated news reports that show a total of around 15,000 civilian casualties since the war began. Even if that lower total was accurate, it suggests that Iraq has suffered at least five times the impact of 9/11 — and the fact that its population is one tenth that of the U.S. would magnify the impact to more like 50 times that of 9/11.

If the civilian death toll can be routinely dismissed as an unfortunate by-product of war, an even more uncomfortable aspect for the U.S. of the Lancet study is the conclusion that the majority of the violent deaths had been caused not by terror attacks, but by U.S. air strikes. The use of air power in urban areas has become a routine part of the counterinsurgency effort in Iraq, and such attacks are typically reported as "air strikes against rebel positions." But civilian casualties are pretty much inevitable when air power is used in cities, despite the best intentions and technological capabilities of those dropping the bombs. That's precisely why the rebels hide out among the civilian population: They know better than to isolate themselves as a target for their enemy's superior firepower, instead forcing him to inflict casualties on the civilian population in order to kill enemy combatants, thereby creating a force multiplier for the insurgency. And it's a relatively safe bet that the extent of civilian casualties in Iraq has reinforced the insurgency.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[wicket]

28. Got a link for that?

[Zynx]

30. 5 million is a gross overestimate.

If he killed that many, the population of Iraq would have dropped during the time he was in power.

[tx_dem41]

31. Yes, it surely can't be at a rate faster than *'s rate, or this exercise

in moral relativism would have never started. :eyes:

[goodbody]

34. Saddam never sent US Military men to their deaths

* has.

[Nederland]

40. Who is responsible for sanction related deaths?

The source below indicates that up to 1.8 million people died as a result of UN sanctions. Now some might blame those deaths on Saddam, because he was the belligerent in Gulf War I, but others would blame the UN. Which do you think it was?

http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~progress/pamp_ed3.html

[jswordy]

42. And don't forget, most of the time Saddam was...

...killing his own folks, we were trying to negotiate with him for oil pipelines, to sell him military tech, or to supply him with ag products!

I am sure there is not a soul on here who has not seen the image of Rummy shakling hands with Saddam! It's all over the Net.

[mngreen]

45. Is Bush really a pro-lifer?

Thousands of innocent people have been killed and more will be killed because of the Iraq war. How could a true pro-lifer start this unnecessary war? And how could true pro-lifers support a war like this? To me, some of the pro-lifers are not real pro-lifers. They are in deed "forced-birthers" in pro-lifers' clothing.

[48pan]

46. Saddam was a Mass Murderer

That has nothing to do with Bush. I'm not supporting or apologizing for a moster because I hate Bush. Lock Saddam up and throw away the key.