Ignoring Iraqi Death Toll Labelled a ?Holocaust Denial?
Ignoring Iraqi Death Toll Labelled a ?Holocaust Denial?
Letters to the Editor Gideon Polya.
Ignoring Iraqi Death Toll Labelled a “Holocaust Denial” As the international debate about the outcome of last year’s war in Iraq escalates, an Australian scientist has ignited the largely suppressed issue of the resulting death toll.
American authorities have consistently refused to quote casualties other than among Coalition troops (805 deaths, according to a current UN report). The UN puts the deaths of Iraqi soldiers at 11,000, while estimates of the collateral deaths of Iraqi civilians from the war have varied from 8,875-10,275 (UN) to 21,700-55,000 (Medact, UK, November 2003).
Now, in a conScience column in the June issue of Australasian Science magazine, published today, Dr Gideon Polya reports calculations of another measure from the “excess mortality” attributable to the war. He explains this is “the difference between the actual deaths observed in a country and the mortality expected for a properly run, peaceful society with the same demographics”.
Dr Polya has been researching and writing a scientific analysis of global mortality. This involves summarising mortality and its causes for all parts of the world throughout history. The ultimate aim is to address the avoidable human mortality that accounts for the approximately 20 million people who die each year from deprivation and malnourishment-related causes.