Ali kisses what is left of his right arm

CAIRO, Aug 10 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – At least 20,000 Iraqi civilians were injured in the U.S.-led war with 8,000 of these injuries reported in the Baghdad area alone, according to the first report of its kind prepared by an Anglo-American-European group of anti-war peace activists.

In its report entitled "Adding Indifference to Injury," the Iraq Body Count (IBC) underlined that the need to investigate and assess the war civilian deaths and injuries is urgent "for many of the injured may still be suffering and their condition may be improved if we act promptly."

The report, seen by IslamOnline.net on the group's website iraqbodycount.com,   suggested that the full, countrywide picture, as with deaths, is yet to emerge.

It noted that it was very much likely that many other casualties could not be recorded, given that some casualties might have been burned beyond recognition or buried quickly in accordance with Islam.

"This total should NOT however be considered comprehensive, and is most likely an under-estimate, because the present calculations include only media and NGO reports published up to July 6, and in particular do not include UNICEF’s July 17 report of more than 1,000 children injured since the end of the war by unexploded ordnance," said the IBC. 

Citing Red Cross reports, the report said that during the heaviest fighting in Baghdad , the capital’s hospitals were so overwhelmed by admissions that no one could any longer keep an accurate count.

It asserted, however, that one major hospital alone had been admitting the war-wounded at a rate of about 100 patients an hour.

The report, which is based on data collected from over 300 press reports from a myriad of newspapers, news agencies and all-news networks, said that most of the larger ratios were the result of aerial bombardment, relatively early in the campaign, while the smaller ones come from the later ground war and postwar conflict.

The group further said that the latest calculation of civilian deaths was estimated at a minimum of 6,086 and a maximum of 7,797.

"Despite 'major hostilities' having been declared over, Iraqi civilians are still regularly being shot and injured by American and British troops," said the IBC, citing some of the "heartbreaking cases," according to some on-the-scene reports by journalists, such as Robert Fisk.

Justice 

Quoting the U.N. Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the group stressed that the occupying powers have a moral and humanitarian imperative to compensate the victims for their unspeakable sufferings, noting that the maimed civilians of Iraq have been "brushed under the carpet." 

"A sizeable if as yet unknown proportion of Iraqi families will contain a relative whose life was ended or put on hold by the U.S. or British forces. Even if only in self-interest, the U.S. and U.K. administrations should be putting the needs of the injured at the very heart of its strategy," the report said.

The group also chided the governments of the U.S. and the U.K. in particular for not launching programs to help relieve the agony of "the men, women, children and old people maimed and traumatized by the brutality of military intervention.

"It (the relief process) has been left to a few charities and aid-agencies, which have struggled against U.S. obstruction to gain a foothold for their work with the sick and injured. The United Nations has remained ineffectual, firmly kept in the background by U.S. diktat," it said. 

The report asserted that "it is the most basic of principles that those who cause damage, harm and injury are responsible for repairing these and making amends if they have the power to do so."

Citing a Washington Post report in late May, the group said that "U.S officials have made clear to Iraqis that they do not intend to conduct a complete accounting of war damages, nor compensate those who say the occupying army owes them.

"And In a recent briefing, U.S. military leaders explicitly ruled out any compensation for injuries (or deaths) sustained during the combat period prior to May 1st. Families will only be eligible for compensation if they can ‘prove clear-cut negligence or wrongdoing by soldiers’ in the ‘post-combat’ phase of the occupation."

This, maintained the report, would exclude the vast majority of injuries from potential compensation.

Pentagon officials had also said that they were wary of beginning a legal process that could entail millions of claims against them.

The IBC report counters, however, that if the reported 20,000 victims, for instance, claimed $10,000 compensation each, the total amount awarded would be $200 million, which is less than the U.S. spends every two days on the occupation.

It further said that even if the number of claims or of average compensations is ultimately twice or ten times higher than this, it will still be trivial compared to the overall cost of the war and occupation.

The U.S. has allocated $4 billion a month for occupying Iraq .

"What excuse can the U.S. possibly have for declining this opportunity to do some good for those who desperately need it , and in the process, win back some of that 'goodwill' it has lost in Iraq and much of the world?" IBC wondered. 

'Hundreds More Alis'

In a related issue, the U.K. Guardian newspaper urged Sunday, August 10, the international community, while helping Ali Ismaeel Abbas, the Iraqi boy mutilated in a U.S. missile attack, not to forget that thousands of Iraqi children were also hurt in the invasion.

In an article titled: "One Ali saved, but thousands more are suffering," the leading newspaper said charities are calling urgently for a specialist rehabilitation center to be set up in Iraq to treat such child amputees close to their families, warning that doctors in Iraq are operating under almost impossibly primitive conditions.

Caroline Spelman, the Tory international development spokesman, has been closely involved with the charity the Limbless Association in bringing Ali to Britain to undergo an operation.

"Ali himself is probably more aware than the rest of us that all the attention he is getting has resulted in help for him, but he has said he wants to ensure that his compatriots get at least the same level of care," she said.

Spelman also exhorted the U.S. International Development Secretary to fund the establishment of an " Ali Center " in Baghdad to treat Iraqi amputees.

So far she has had no reply, said the Guardian.

It further said that Iraq 's National Spinal Cord Injuries Center in Baghdad was badly looted and now lacks such basics as sheets, pillows, sterilization equipment and anesthetics.

"They haven't even got the chemicals to make a cast [for prosthetic limbs]. It's all been looted," the daily quoted as saying Zafar Khan, chair of the Limbless Association.

"They were only left with large machines which the looters could not take away. I understand £210 million has been allocated for rebuilding Iraq - well we are talking about human rebuilding here, rebuilding people," he added.