Iraqi doctor who disputes official death tolls (Lancet study) is denied visa to visit UW

[ProSense]

Friday, April 20, 2007
Last updated 7:22 a.m. PT

Iraqi doctor who disputes official death tolls is denied visa to visit UW

By BRAD WONG
P-I REPORTER

An Iraqi doctor who made international headlines after stating that civilian deaths in the Iraq war far exceeded officially reported numbers is not being allowed to travel to North America to meet other academics.

Riyadh Lafta and his colleagues have been trying for months to get a U.S. travel visa so the doctor could speak at a medical conference at the University of Washington today.

The State Department has cited miscommunication as the reason for the visa holdup.

As an alternative, Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C., invited Lafta to deliver his lecture today, which was to have been broadcast by video to the UW. But this week, the British government denied him a four-hour transit visa for a stopover between the Middle East and Canada.

Lafta, an epidemiologist, teaches at Al-Mustansiriya University College of Medicine in Baghdad and co-wrote an October 2006 article about Iraqi civilian deaths in The Lancet, a respected British medical journal.

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Hagopian, who is conducting research with Lafta, believes the Bush administration is purposely blocking his travel to the United States. "My hypothesis is the Bush administration was extremely threatened by The Lancet study," she said.

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[Monkeyman]

1. Yep That Study Scares the Pants off Bush

[pretzel4gore]

2. Doc should claim US citizenship, bush destroyed his country

bush can have iraqi citizenship in exchange....

[IndianaGreen]

3. Bush and Blair don't want the truth to get public airing

Bush was dismissive of the Lancet Report, and the complicit American media let him get away with it.

[MountainLaurel]

4. Not surprising, but what bastards!

The truth is out there, and it cannot be completely hidden.