[Mb-civic] (no subject)

[Hawaiipolo at cs.com]

Why Numbers Matter 
By Marla Ruzicka 
AlterNet 

Wednesday 20 April 2005 


> Just before her death, Marla Ruzicka wrote about the importance of 
> recording and publicly releasing Iraqi civilian casualty numbers.
 
Baghdad - The writer, a 28-year-old humanitarian aid worker from California, 
was killed Saturday in Baghdad when a suicide bomber aiming for a convoy of 
contractors pulled alongside her vehicle and detonated his explosives. Her 
longtime driver and translator, Faiz Ali Salim, also died. She filed this piece 
from Baghdad a week before her death. 
In my two years in Iraq, the one question I am asked the most is: "How many 
Iraqi civilians have been killed by American forces?" The American public has a 
right to know how many Iraqis have lost their lives since the start of the 
war and as hostilities continue. 
In a news conference at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in March 2002, Gen. 
Tommy Franks said, "We don't do body counts." His words outraged the Arab world 
and damaged the US claim that its forces go to great lengths to minimize 
civilian casualties. 
During the Iraq war, as US troops pushed toward Baghdad, counting civilian 
casualties was not a priority for the military. However, since May 1, 2003, when 
President Bush declared major combat operations over and the US military 
moved into a phase referred to as "stability operations," most units began to keep 
track of Iraqi civilians killed at checkpoints or during foot patrols by US 
soldiers. 
Here in Baghdad, a brigadier general commander explained to me that it is 
standard operating procedure for US troops to file a spot report when they shoot 
a non-combatant. It is in the military's interest to release these statistics. 

Recently, I obtained statistics on civilian casualties from a high-ranking US 
military official. The numbers were for Baghdad only, for a short period, 
during a relatively quiet time. Other hot spots, such as the Ramadi and Mosul 
areas, could prove worse. The statistics showed that 29 civilians were killed by 
small-arms fire during firefights between US troops and insurgents between 
Feb. 28 and April 5 - four times the number of Iraqi police killed in the same 
period. It is not clear whether the bullets that killed these civilians were 
fired by US troops or insurgents. 
A good place to search for Iraqi civilian death counts is the Iraqi 
Assistance Center in Baghdad and the General Information Centers set up by the US 
military across Iraq. Iraqis who have been harmed by Americans have the right to 
file claims for compensation at these locations, and some claims have been paid. 
But others have been denied, even when the US forces were in the wrong. 
The Marines have also been paying compensation in Fallujah and Najaf. These 
data serve as a good barometer of the civilian costs of battle in both cities. 
These statistics demonstrate that the US military can and does track civilian 
casualties. Troops on the ground keep these records because they recognize 
they have a responsibility to review each action taken and that it is in their 
interest to minimize mistakes, especially since winning the hearts and minds of 
Iraqis is a key component of their strategy. The military should also want to 
release this information for the purposes of comparison with reports such as 
the Lancet study published late last year. It suggested that since the US-led 
invasion there had been 100,000 deaths in Iraq. 
A further step should be taken. In my dealings with US military officials 
here, they have shown regret and remorse for the deaths and injuries of 
civilians. Systematically recording and publicly releasing civilian casualty numbers 
would assist in helping the victims who survive to piece their lives back 
together. 
A number is important not only to quantify the cost of war, but as a reminder 
of those whose dreams will never be realized in a free and democratic Iraq. 
Marla Ruzicka was founder of Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict , or 
CIVIC. In 2003, she organized surveyors across Iraq to document civilian 
casualties. Before that, she managed a similar project in Afghanistan that helped to 
secure assistance from the US government for civilian victims. 

Go to Original 
Aid Worker Uncovered America's Secret Tally of Iraqi Civilian Deaths 
By Andrew Buncombe 
The Indpendent UK 
Wednesday 20 April 2005 
A week before she was killed by a suicide bomber, humanitarian worker Marla 
Ruzicka forced military commanders to admit they did keep records of Iraqi 
civilians killed by US forces. 
Tommy Franks, the former head of US Central Command, famously said the US 
army "don't do body counts", despite a requirement to do so by the Geneva 
Conventions. 
But in an essay Ms Ruzicka wrote a week before her death on Saturday and 
published yesterday, the 28-year-old revealed that a Brigadier General told her it 
was "standard operating procedure" for US troops to file a report when they 
shoot a non-combatant. 
She obtained figures for the number of civilians killed in Baghdad between 28 
February and 5 April, and discovered that 29 had been killed in firefights 
involving US forces and insurgents. This was four times the number of Iraqi 
police killed. 
"These statistics demonstrate that the US military can and does track 
civilian casualties," she wrote. "Troops on the ground keep these records because 
they recognise they have a responsibility to review each action taken and that it 
is in their interest to minimise mistakes, especially since winning the 
hearts and minds of Iraqis is a key component of their strategy." 
Sam Zia-Zarifi, deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, 
the group for which Ms Ruzicka wrote the report, said her discovery "was very 
important because it allows the victims to start demanding compensation". He 
added: "At a policy level they have never admitted they keep these figures." 
Exactly how many Iraqi civilians have been killed in the last two years is 
unclear. Iraq Body Count, a group that monitors casualty reports, says at least 
17,384 have died. But the group bases its totals only on deaths reported by 
the media, and says it can therefore only "be a sample" of the total actually 
killed. Its website says: "It is likely that many if not most civilian 
casualties will go unreported by the media. That is the sad nature of war." 
A peer-reviewed report published last year in The Lancet and based on an 
extrapolation of data suggested that 100,000 civilians may have been killed during 
the invasion and its aftermath. One of the report's author, Dr Richard 
Garfield, professor of nursing at Columbia University, said: "Of course they keep 
records and of course they pretend they don't. Why is it important to keep the 
numbers of those killed? Well, why was it important to record the names of 
those people killed in the World Trade Centre? It would have been inconceivable 
not to. These people have lives of value. 
"We are still fighting [to record] the Armenian genocide. Until people have 
names and are counted they don't exist in a policy sense." 
Ms Ruzicka, from California, was killed in Baghdad after her car was caught 
in the blast of a suicide bomber who attacked a convoy of security contractors 
on the road to the city's airport. She was in Iraq heading, Civic, the 
organisation she set up to record and document civilians killed or injured by the US 
military, and to seek compensation. She carried out a similar project in 
Afghanistan. 
In her report, she wrote from Iraq: "In my dealings with the US military 
officials here, they have shown regret and remorse for the deaths and injuries of 
civilians. Systematically recording and publicly releasing civilian casualty 
numbers would assist in helping the victims who survive to piece their lives 
back together." 
Colleagues of Ms Ruzicka at CIVIC (Campaign for Innocent Victims In Conflict 
) have vowed to continue her work. April Pedersen, a friend, said: "We are all 
committed to ensuring the work that Marla did is going to continue." Ms 
Ruzicka, whose funeral service is to be in California on Saturday, was also 
remembered on Capitol Hill where Senator Patrick Leahy, with whom Ms Ruzicka worked 
to achieve almost $20m in appropriations to help victims in Afghanistan and 
Iraq, paid tribute to her. 
He said: "I want to... pay tribute to a remarkable young woman from Lakeport, 
California. In my 31 years as a United States Senator I have met lots of 
interesting and accomplished people from all over the world. We all have. Nobel 
prize winners, heads of state, people who have achieved remarkable and even 
heroic things in their lives. I have never met anyone like Marla Ruzicka." 
Meanwhile the Pentagon maintained its position that it did not keep numbers of 
civilians killed in Iraq. 
'The public must know how many have died' 
This is an edited extract of an article written by Marla Ruzicka a week 
before her death: 
In my two years in Iraq, the one question I am asked the most is: "How many 
Iraqi civilians have been killed by American forces?" The American public has a 
right to know how many Iraqis have lost their lives since the start of the 
war and as hostilities continue. 
In a news conference at Bagram air base in Afghanistan in March 2002, General 
Tommy Franks said: "We don't do body counts." His words outraged the Arab 
world. 
During the Iraq war, as US troops pushed toward Baghdad, counting civilian 
casualties was not a priority for the military. Since 1 May 2003, when President 
Bush declared major combat operations over and the US military moved into 
"stability operations", most units began to keep track of civilians killed at 
checkpoints or during patrols by US soldiers. 
Here in Baghdad, a brigadier general explained to me that it is standard 
procedure for US troops to file a spot report when they shoot a non-combatant. It 
is in the military's interest to release these statistics. 
A number is important not only to quantify the cost of war, but as a reminder 
of those whose dreams will never be realised in a free and democratic Iraq. 
------- 
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