large role in the
fighting, they do remind us that the minimal
figures given out by CENTAF don't give an accurate
picture of the air war in Iraq. These particular
totals are, according CENTAF, "separate from the
data provided" to Tomdispatch on Iraqi bomb and
missile expenditure in 2006.
'Relentless pursuit' Since the
invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US air war in that
country, often targeting urban areas, has been
given remarkably short shrift
in
the media. In 2004, Tom Engelhardt, writing at
Tomdispatch, called attention to this glaring
absence (see Icarus (armed with vipers) over
Iraq, Asia Times Online, December 8,
2004). Seymour Hersh's seminal piece of reportage,
"Up in the air", published in The New Yorker in
late 2005, ushered in some mainstream attention to
the subject.
Articles by Dahr Jamail, an
independent journalist who covered the US
occupation and war in Iraq, before and after the
Hersh piece, are among the smattering of pieces
that have offered glimpses of the air campaign and
its impact. To date, however, the mainstream US
media have not, to use the words of
Lieutenant-Colonel Kennedy, engaged in a
"relentless pursuit of the number of cannon
rounds" fired or any other aspect of the air war
or its consequences for the people of Iraq.
While we will undoubtedly never know the
full extent of the human costs of the US air
campaign, just a few dogged reporters assigned to
the air-power beat might, at the very least, have
offered some sense of this one-sided air war.
Since this has not been the case, we must rely on
the best available evidence.
One valuable
source is a national cross-sectional cluster
sample survey of mortality in Iraq since the 2003
invasion. Carried out by epidemiologists at Johns
Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public
Health and Iraqi physicians organized through
Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, it estimated
655,000 "excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of
the war". The study, published in the British
medical journal The Lancet last October, found
that from March 2003 to June 2006, 13% of violent
deaths in Iraq were caused by coalition air
strikes. If the 655,000 figure, including more
than 601,000 violent deaths, is anywhere close to
accurate - and the study offered a possible range
of civilian deaths that ran from 392,979 to
942,636 - this would equal about 78,133 Iraqis
killed by bombs, missiles, rockets or cannon
rounds from coalition aircraft between March 2003
when the invasion of Iraq began and last June when
the study concluded.
There are indications
that the US air war has taken an especially
grievous toll on Iraqi children. According to
statistics provided to Tomdispatch by The Lancet
study's authors, 50% of all violent deaths of
Iraqi children under 15 years of age, between
March 2003 and June 2006, were due to coalition
air strikes.
The Lancet study used
well-established survey methods, which have been
proved in conflict zones from Kosovo to Congo, and
interviewers actually inspected death certificates
from 92% of the households surveyed where they
were requested (which they did 87% of the time).
The Iraq Body Count Project, a group of
researchers based in the United Kingdom who
maintain a public database of Iraqi civilian
deaths resulting from the war, carefully restricts
itself to the sparser media reports of civilian
fatalities that come out of Iraq. While a much
lower number (currently the range of
media-reported deaths stands at 55,441-61,133)
than the The Lancet's findings, an analysis of the
UK project's carefully limited data also offers a
glimpse of the human costs of the air war.
Statistics provided to Tomdispatch by the
Iraq Body Count Project show that since the US
invasion in 2003, coalition air strikes have,
according to media sources alone - which as we
know have covered the air war poorly - caused
between 15,593 and 17,067 Iraqi civilian
casualties, including 3,625-4,093 deaths. Last
year, media reports listed between 169 and 200
Iraqis killed and 111-112 injured in 28 separate
coalition air strikes, according to the IBC
Project.
These numbers also appear to be
on the rise. In an e-mail message to Tomdispatch
last month, John Sloboda, the co-founder and
spokesperson for the IBC Project, noted that the
"vast majority [of lethal air strikes] have been
in the last half of the year".
When asked
about the modest air-power casualty figures
provided by the Iraq Body Count Project and
whether CENTAF accepts them, Lieutenant-Colonel
Kennedy dodged the question, telling Tomdispatch,
"We do not track such numbers and so cannot
comment on the project's efforts or validity." He
had a similar answer when it came to The Lancet
study's findings.
Asked about the
assertion that the second half of 2006 was much
deadlier for Iraqis because of US air strikes and
the possible reasons for this, Kennedy waxed
eloquent: "War by its very nature has ebbs and
flows, and we constantly review the application of
air power to best support the forces on the ground
in theater. We view this as simply part of our
contract to the war fighters. As we do not discuss
operational aspects of missions, I'll decline
further comment."
Kennedy went on to say
that the US makes "every effort" to "minimize
collateral damage regardless of whether the enemy
is on open ground or within the confines of a
city". Just days ago, in the Los Angeles Times,
Lieutenant-General Carrol H "Howie" Chandler, the
USAF's deputy chief of staff for operations, plans
and requirements, expanded on this line of
thought, noting, "I wouldn't automatically write
off air power in an urban environment for fear of
collateral damage ... We have the capability with
precision targeting and the new weapons to operate
in an urban environment."
Sarah Sewall,
who served as US deputy assistant secretary of
defense from 1993 to 1996 and is now director for
the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard
University, agreed that air power has a role to
play in urban operations, and may even mitigate
civilian harm in certain instances. She warned,
however, "I have a lot of skepticism about the
applicability of air power for all types of
problems and particularly for the types of
problems that we see commonly, on a day-to-day
basis, in Iraq today." She told Tomdispatch, "The
problem comes when you think it is the functional
equivalent of ground forces."
The pace
quickens In 2005, CENTAF reported using
404 bombs and missiles in Iraq. In 2006, an
apparent lull (whether in lethal attacks or just
in their reporting) in the first half of the year
seems to have given way to a rise in deadly
attacks during the second half.
Only days
into 2007, the US military had already conducted
air strikes in three nations - Afghanistan, Iraq
and Somalia. And in
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
