Filtering Dirt

Data from the organization Iraq Body Count, which registers Iraqi war casualties, calculates that between 2003 and 2010 so far, between 98,585 and 107,594 civilian deaths have occurred. Many saw the count as exaggerated, but last Saturday the confirmation that the number could be even worse hit like a bomb, especially because the source is the United States Armed Forces’ archives.

WikiLeaks, a blog dedicated to disclosing secret documents, spilled on the Internet 391,832 documents from the Pentagon referring to the Iraqi invasion perpetrated by the United States and its allies. They had done it before. Now, the data refers to 109,032 deaths between 2004 and 2009 out of which 66,081 correspond to civilians, 23,894 to “insurgents,” 15,196 to Iraqi military and 3,771 to coalition soldiers. In other words, two out of every three dead are common citizens (15,000 more than what Body Count previously calculated) — more than double the “enemy soldiers” or terrorists and almost four times the number of Iraqi military. The killing of civilians has been gigantic, and the casualties of regular citizens have been greater than those of fighters of all kinds.

But the documents reveal more than just numbers. They also register hundreds of abuses, including the shooting of a group of rebels surrendering hands up from a helicopter, the breaking into a house through blood and fire where only dead children were found, homicides committed by mercenaries from multinational security company Blackwater, the confirming and hiding of tortures and, in summary, overwhelming episodes with date, place and details.

Washington’s reaction to the complaints reported by WikiLeaks and its director, blogger Julian Assange (who lives in hiding in London) is limited to stating they are illegal and endanger their soldiers. No signs of an investigation or a word of apology. Instead, the British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has gone further. He regrets, yes, the disclosure of secret documents, but he acknowledges that the disclosed events are “extraordinarily grave.” This is what really matters. The first fact is a mere technical point. If it weren’t for WikiLeaks, we may have never been able to measure the filth of this illegal war.