Iraq Body Count project
The Iraq Body Count project (IBC) is an ongoing effort to record civilian deaths resulting from the 2003 invasion of Iraq and occupation. Civilian deaths counted are those attributable to insurgent or military action in Iraq, and also to increased criminal violence. This refers to excess civilian deaths caused by criminal action resulting from the breakdown in law and order which followed the coalition invasion. The sources for the data are reports in English-language media. The group is staffed by volunteers consisting mainly of academics and activists based in the UK and the USA. The project was founded by John Sloboda and Hamit Dardagan.
The project's aim
The IBC overview page states: "This is an ongoing human security project which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq that have resulted from the 2003 military intervention by the USA and its allies. The count includes civilian deaths caused by coalition military action and by military or paramilitary responses to the coalition presence (e.g. insurgent and terrorist attacks). It also includes excess civilian deaths caused by criminal action resulting from the breakdown in law and order which followed the coalition invasion." [1]
The project quotes the top US general in Iraq, Tommy Franks, as saying "We don't do body counts [1]". The quotation was from a discussion of the Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan and was referring to counts of enemy soldiers killed, in the context of using enemy body counts as a measure of military success. The website, which omits the context of the quote, could be said to conflate the meaning of "enemy body count" with "civilian deaths caused" and to imply that the US is not interested in the number of civilian deaths its military operations cause. On the other hand, the US army in general doesn't provide detailed statistical information about civilians killed and harmed by their actions, so one could perhaps argue that the quote, though not in context, is true even when interpreted out of context and contrary to its probable intended meaning.
Biographical information of group members is shown on the group's website
Method
The IBC overview page states: "Casualty figures are derived from a comprehensive survey of online media reports from recognized sources. Where these sources report differing figures, the range (a minimum and a maximum) are given. This method is also used to deal with any residual uncertainty about the civilian or non-combatant status of the dead. All results are independently reviewed and error-checked by at least three members of the Iraq Body Count project team before publication." [1]
The project is staffed by volunteers who attempt to measure the number of violent civilian deaths resulting from the Iraq war of 2003 by sampling news stories to extract minimum and maximum numbers of civilian casualties. Each incident reported at least by two independent news sources is included in the Iraq Body Count database.
IBC is purely a civilian count. IBC defines civilian to exclude Iraqi soldiers, insurgents, suicide bombers or any others directly engaged in war-related violence. A "min" and "max" figure are used where reports differ on the numbers killed, or where the civilian status of the dead is uncertain.
IBC is also not an "estimate" of total civilian deaths. It is a compilation of documented deaths, meaning that any deaths not reported or which were not recorded or made public by morgues or hospitals will not be counted. Only the central Baghdad area morgue has released figures consistently. While that is the largest morgue in Iraq and in the most consistently violent area, the absence of comprehensive morgue figures elsewhere will likely lead to some undercounting. IBC makes it clear that, due to these issues, its count will almost certainly be below the full toll in its 'Quick FAQ' on its homepage.
Some have suggested bias of sources could affect the count. If a number is quoted from a pro-Iraqi source, and the Allies fail to give a sufficiently specific alternate number, the pro-Iraqi figure is entered into IBC's database as both a maximum and a minimum. The same works vice versa. The project argues that these potential over- and undercounts by different media sources would tend to balance out.
IBC's online database shows the newspaper, magazine or website where each number is reported, and the date on which it was reported. However, this has been criticized as insufficient because it typically does not list the original sources for the information: that is, the NGO, journalist or government responsible for the number presented. Hence, any inherent bias due to the lack of reliable reports from independent or Allied sources is not readily available to the reader.
Sources
The IBC overview page states: "Our sources include public domain newsgathering agencies with web access. A list of some core sources is given below. ... For a source to be considered acceptable to this project it must comply with the following standards: (1) site updated at least daily; (2) all stories separately archived on the site, with a unique url (see Note 1 below); (3) source widely cited or referenced by other sources; (4) English Language site; (5) fully public (preferably free) web-access. ... Note 1. Some sites remove items after a given time period, change their urls, or place them in archives with inadequate search engines. For this reason it is project policy that urls of sources are NOT published on the iraqbodycount site." [1]
The IBC report for 2003 to 2005 states: "We have not made use of Arabic or other non English language sources, except where these have been published in English. The reasons are pragmatic. We consider fluency in the language of the published report to be a key requirement for accurate analysis, and English is the only language in which all team members are fluent. It is possible that our count has excluded some victims as a result." [2]
Primary sources used by the media are listed in the 2003 to 2005 IBC report. The sources are followed by the number of deaths reported from that source.
- Mortuaries. 8,913
- Medics. 4,846
- Iraqi officials. 4,376
- Eyewitnesses. 3,794
- Police. 3,588
- Relatives. 2,780
- US-Coalition. 2,423
- Journalists. 1,976
- NGOs. 732
- Friends/Associates. 596
- Other. 196
Web counters
The IBC overview page states: "Results and totals are continually updated and made immediately available here and on various IBC web counters which may be freely displayed on any website or homepage, where they are automatically updated without further intervention." [1]
Body count
Deaths in the Iraq war.
| Date | Min | Max |
| 9 April, 2003 | 996 | 1,174 |
| 10 August 2003 | 6,087 | 7,798 |
| 25 April, 2004 | 8,918 | 10,769 |
| 12 September 2004 | 11,797 | 13,806 |
| 12 March 2005 | 16,231 | 18,509 |
| 6 December 2005 | 27,354 | 30,863 |
| 28 June 2006 | 38,725 | 43,140 |
| 02 October 2006 | 43,546 | 48,343 |
[Note: The figures above are those that appeared in real time on the IBC counters on or around those dates. However, those in the first line were increased radically in the following days and weeks. IBC's current Max figure for the entire invasion phase, up to 30 April 2003, now stands at 7,299. Because IBC performs analyses (eg., accounts for multiple reports, eliminates overlaps, etc.), there is always a delay between the date on which incidents occur and the addition of their numbers to the IBC database. Another factor is that some reports emerge weeks or even months later - for instance the emergence of Baghdad city morgue reports for 2005 in early 2006. The 6 December line above was taken from the IBC total as it stood on 6 December 2005, but the emergence of the morgue figures later increased IBC's figures for that period to 31,818 - 35,747.]
2003-2005 report.
The website released a report detailing the civilian deaths it had recorded between 2003 and 2005. [2] The report says the US and its allies were responsible for the largest share (37%) of the 24,865 deaths. The remaining deaths were attributed to anti-occupation forces (9%), crime (36%), and unknown agents (11%).
Who did the killing?
- 37%. US-led forces killed 37% of civilian victims.
- 9%. Anti-occupation forces/insurgents killed 9% of civilian victims.
- 36%. Post-invasion criminal violence accounted for 36% of all deaths.
- 11%. Unknown agents (11%).
- Killings by anti-occupation forces, crime and unknown agents have shown a steady rise over the entire period.
Who was killed?
- 24,865 civilians were reported killed in the first two years.
- Men accounted for over 80% of all civilian deaths.
- Baghdad alone recorded almost half of all deaths.
When did they die?
- 30% of civilian deaths occurred during the invasion phase before 1 May 2003.
- Post-invasion, the number of civilians killed was almost twice as high in year two (11,351) as in year one (6,215).
What was the most lethal weaponry?
- Over half (53%) of all civilian deaths involved explosive devices.
- Air strikes caused most (64%) of the explosives deaths.
- Children were disproportionately affected by all explosive devices but most severely by air strikes and unexploded ordnance (including cluster bomblets).
How many were injured?
- At least 42,500 civilians were reported wounded.
- The invasion phase caused 41% of all reported injuries.
- Explosive weaponry caused a higher ratio of injuries to deaths than small arms.
- The highest wounded-to-death ratio incidents occurred during the invasion phase.
Criticism
The project has been the most often cited source on Iraqi deaths, however criticism has been widespread. Some critics have focused on potential bias of sources. Others have raised concerns about the difficulty of distinguishing civilians from combatants. Still others have claimed the project should not be trusted because it is "run by amateurs".
Typically these criticisms have come from the political right, but since 2006 some on the left have also begun criticizing IBC, arguing that their figures are far too low due to pro-US media bias and inadequate reporting due to its heavy (though not exclusive) reliance on Western media sources, which has led some of these critics to claim IBC should be called the "Iraq Western Media Body Count". These biases and inadequacies, they claim, mean IBC's count is low by up to a factor of 10, and that it specifically minimizes the proportion of deaths caused by US forces.
A further claim has been that IBC do little or nothing to correct misuse of their figures by public officials or media organizations, saying the media often use IBC numbers wrongly as an estimate of the total number dead, and use IBC in order to ignore or downplay the 2004 excess mortality study published in the Lancet Medical Journal, which estimated a higher figure, and which these critics feel is the most accurate figure, and should be given priority over other studies into Iraqi deaths.
This critique was mostly based around the media-watchdog website Media Lens, who published four pieces on what they saw as the "massive bias and gaps" reflected in the IBC database and their totals, and called on their readers to email IBC and various news organizations and peace groups with these complaints. Journalists John Pilger and Dahr Jamail have also joined in these criticisms (see links below).
IBC has recently published a lengthy response to these critiques entitled "Speculation is no substitute: a defence of Iraq Body Count", in which they argue that their critics have several key facts wrong and that, while IBC agrees it is bound to be below the full toll, these errors have led these critics to greatly exaggerate the likely extent of such an undercount and that the available evidence does not support their claims of a pro-US bias infecting the IBC database.
See also
- Casualties of the conflict in Iraq since 2003
- Lancet surveys of mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq
- UNDP Iraq Living Conditions Survey
References
- ^ a b c d e Iraq Body Count. Background and overview.
- ^ a b A dossier of civilian casualties 2003-2005. IBC report.
External links
- Website of Iraq Body Count
- A dossier of civilian casualties 2003-2005 - summary report spanning the first two years (PDF)
- Les Roberts, Riyadh Lafta, Richard Garfield, Jamal Khudhairi, Gilbert Burnham, "Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey", Centre for Research on Globalisation, 29 October, 2004.
- Medialens, "Paved with good intentions - Iraq Body Count - Part 1", Medialens Alert, January 25, 2006.
- Medialens, "Paved with good intentions - Iraq Body Count - Part 2", Medialens Alert, January 26, 2006.
- Stephen Soldz, "When Promoting Truth Obscures the Truth: More on Iraqi Body Count and Iraqi Deaths", ZNet, February 5, 2006.
- Les Roberts, "Do Iraqi Civilian Casualties Matter?", AlterNet, February 14, 2006.
- Medialens, "Media alert update: Iraq Body Count refuses to respond", Medialens Alert, March 14, 2006.
- John Sloboda, Hamit Dardagan, "On the Iraq Body Count project", Presentation based on a lecture given by John Sloboda in February 2006.
- Dahr Jamail, "Learning to Count: the Dead in Iraq", April 13, 2006
- Hamit Dardagan, John Sloboda & Josh Dougherty Speculation is no substitute: a defence of Iraq Body Count", A rebuttal to the critiques by Media Lens, Stephen Soldz, Dahr Jamail, etc.