LONDON, December 8 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair turned down Wednesday, December 8, demands from eminent British figures to open an independent inquiry into the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the start of the US-led war on Iraq.

During his weekly question period in parliament, Blair said that the Iraqi health ministry was the right choice to tally the number of the Iraqi civilians, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"The figures from the Iraqi ministry of health ... are in our view the most accurate survey that there is."

The British premier further claimed that the Iraqi "insurgents" for the ongoing violence in the war-torn country.

"Those people that are killing innocent people in Iraq today, who are responsible for innocent people dying, are the terrorists and insurgents who want to stop the elections happening in Iraq.”

Forty-seven influential figures, including a number of former British ambassadors and bishops, urged Blair in a letter made public earlier in the day to agree to such an inquiry.

"Your government is obliged under international humanitarian law to protect the civilian population during military operations in Iraq, and you have consistently promised to do so," read the letter.

"We urge you immediately to commission a comprehensive, independent inquiry to determine with the greatest possible accuracy how many Iraqis have died or been injured since March 2003, and the cause of the casualties," added the dignitaries.

Signatories of the open letter included Air Marshal Sir Timothy Garden, who spent 32 years in the military; Sir Stephen Egerton, a former British ambassador to Iraq; and Lord Bishop of Coventry Colin Bennetts.

Former Foreign Office legal adviser Elizabeth Wilmshurst along with Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and writer Gillian Slovo were also among the signatories.

"Since they don't want to catalogue the deaths, they are giving the impression that ordinary Iraqi lives are worth less than those of the soldiers and that life is expendable," said Jagger

Human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger, one of the letter's signatory, told the BBC News Online that ignorance to make a death toll on the Iraqi casualties would give the impression that the Iraqi lives are less worth than of the British and US soldiers.

"Since they don't want to catalogue the deaths, they are giving the impression that ordinary Iraqi lives are worth less than those of the soldiers and that life is expendable."

"No figures in a war zone are going to be perfect - but that's no excuse for not trying."

"Without information, everyone is working in the dark," he said.

He added that the Iraqi health system should not be left to keep a tally on its own, urging that the US-led occupation authorities had a responsibility to "commission and resource this work themselves".

The Iraq Body Count (IBC), an Anglo-American research group tracking civilian deaths, took a similar stance.

"Having made no effort to count Iraqi casualties at all, the British Government now says that reliable figures are not available," IBC co-founder John Sloboda told the BBC.

"We know from our work and the research of others that information from Iraqi hospital, mortuary and other official sources is available and this should be combined with media reports, military contact data and active on-the-ground research to establish the most accurate figures possible."