Having appeared in early 2004, what remains most important about this detailed analysis from IBC is that, while some of it is now outdated, most of it remains as pertinent today as then, particularly in regard to official disinterest and (perhaps a little less so) media priorities.
The sad milestone of 10,000 civilian deaths, as recorded by IBC, was cited across the political spectrum (though not necessarily with attribution).
As predicted, this milestone proved to be all too transitory.
1 A New Account of Sept. 11 Loss, With 40 Fewer Souls to Mourn Dan Barry, New York Times, 29 Oct 2003.
7. Sole attention to US/UK and Western deaths
It is, of course, a sign of a civilised society that deaths should be announced, formally recorded, and memorialised. It is absolutely right and proper that the names and details of all people killed and wounded in a war should be made publicly available, and that no effort should be spared to ensure that the information is both accurate and complete.
But is there some unwritten rule by which the combatants killed – particularly the salaried, non-conscript soldiers of the aggressor nations – deserve more care and attention than those innocents – non-combatant men, women and children – whose lives have also been extinguished? If no such rule exists, why is it that on almost any day, a web search of the world's media will reveal massively more reports and discussion of Western soldiers killed than of Iraqi civilians, even though the reality on almost every day is that far more Iraqi civilians have been killed than Western soldiers?
On 29th October 2003 the official 9-11 death toll was reduced from 2,792 to 2,752 when 40 potential deaths were eliminated from the count. Here is a telling extract from the New York Times for that day (our emphases):
Do we grieve less? Are we happy? What does it mean? “The question is, does it make it any less tragic?” said Jonathan Greenspun, the commissioner of the Mayor‘s Community Assistance Unit. “The answer is, no, it doesn’t.”
The change in the number … reflects the best in human nature, city officials say, as personified by investigators so intent on determining the true and sacred number of the dead that they properly took their time, even if it meant that a few fraudulent names, or the names of the living, were sprinkled among those of the many dead. Better that, they reasoned, than to exclude the name of one true victim.
The mission to specify the number of victims has been a necessary one: partly for history, partly for the distribution of death benefits — and partly to satisfy a communal desire for a number whose exactness might bring some comprehension to the incomprehensible.1
We agree with every word of this quote. We think, however, that every word of it also applies to Iraqi deaths in the current conflict.