>From: "David, Richard J." <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: [healthnotwar] [Fwd: [spiritof1848] Guardian article by Lancet 
>editor Richard      Horton on Iraq]
>Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2007 05:07:15 -0500 (CDT)
>
>---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
>Subject: [spiritof1848] Guardian article by Lancet editor Richard Horton
>on Iraq
>From:    [log in to unmask]
>Date:    Thu, March 29, 2007 1:32 pm
>To:      [log in to unmask]
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>A monstrous war crime
>
>With more than 650,000 civilians dead in Iraq,  our government must take
>responsibility for its lies
>
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2044345,00.html
>
>by  Richard Horton, Editor - The Lancet
>
>Wednesday March 28, 2007
>
>The  Guardian
>
>Our collective failure has been to take our political leaders at  their
>word. This week the BBC reported that the government's own  scientists
>advised ministers that the Johns Hopkins study on Iraq  civilian
>mortality was accurate and reliable, following a freedom of  information
>request by the reporter Owen Bennett-Jones. This paper was  published in
>the Lancet last October. It estimated that 650,000 Iraqi  civilians had
>died since the American and British led invasion in March  2003.
>
>Immediately after publication, the prime minister's official  spokesman
>said that the Lancet's study "was not one we believe to be  anywhere
>near accurate". The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, said that  the
>Lancet figures were "extrapolated" and a "leap". President Bush  said:
>"I don't consider it a credible report".
>
>Scientists at the UK's  Department for International Development thought
>differently. They concluded  that the study's methods were "tried and
>tested". Indeed, the Johns Hopkins  approach would likely lead to an
>"underestimation of mortality".
>
>The  Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the research
>was  "robust", close to "best practice", and "balanced". He recommended
>"caution  in publicly criticising the study".
>
>When these recommendations went to  the prime minister's advisers, they
>were horrified. One person briefing Tony  Blair wrote: "Are we really
>sure that the report is likely to be right? That  is certainly what the
>brief implies?" A Foreign and Commonwealth Office  official was forced
>to conclude that the government "should not be rubbishing  the Lancet".
>
>The prime minister's adviser finally gave in. He wrote: "The  survey
>methodology used here cannot be rubbished, it is a tried and tested  way
>of measuring mortality in conflict zones".
>
>How would the  government respond? Would it welcome the Johns Hopkins
>study as an important  contribution to understanding the military threat
>to Iraqi civilians? Would  it ask for urgent independent verification?
>Would it invite the Iraqi  government to upgrade civilian security?
>
>Of course, our government did  none of these things. Tony Blair was
>advised to say: "The overriding message  is that there are no accurate
>or reliable figures of deaths in  Iraq".
>
>His official spokesman went further and rejected the Johns  Hopkins
>report entirely. It was a shameful and cowardly dissembling by a  Labour
>- yes, by a Labour - prime minister.
>
>Indeed, it was even  contrary to the US's own Iraq Study Group report,
>which concluded last year  that "there is significant underreporting of
>the violence in  Iraq".
>
>This Labour government, which includes Gordon Brown as much as it  does
>Tony Blair, is party to a war crime of monstrous proportions. Yet  our
>political consensus prevents any judicial or civil society  response.
>Britain is paralysed by its own indifference.
>
>At a time when  we are celebrating our enlightened abolition of slavery
>200 years ago, we are  continuing to commit one of the worst
>international abuses of human rights of  the past half-century. It is
>inexplicable how we allowed this to happen. It  is inexplicable why we
>are not demanding this government's mass  resignation.
>
>Two hundred years from now, the Iraq war will be mourned as  the moment
>when Britain violated its delicate democratic constitution and  joined
>the ranks of nations that use extreme pre-emptive killing as a  tactic
>of foreign policy. Some anniversary that will be.
>
>· Richard  Horton is a doctor and the editor of the  Lancet
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