On the 17th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, casualties of the war need to be assessed, to inform our understanding of the ‘war on terror’, its effects and its usefulness. Since 2003 the conflict has escalated, spilled over, subsided and flared up several times. Research in documented civilian deaths through the work of Iraq Body Count, within the framework of a discussion on security and democracy, can address questions on loss, on threats and on freedom. As another anniversary of the invasion arrives, with the war still ongoing, what has this war achieved and what has been lost?
Khudaer Muhammad Abdullah, 49, and his wife had already lost 2 sons; 19-year-old Muazzaz was kidnapped and killed last year, while 21-year-old Saad was killed by a suicide bomber last month, at the police academy in Kirkuk.
‘On Sunday he lost his last son, and his 4-year-old daughter is now hospitalized with serious wounds. His last son, Muhammad Khudaer Muhammad, 7, was killed when part of a rocket-propelled grenade exploded on a vacant lot where he was playing soccer with three other children, according to police reports. Muhammad was killed instantly in the blast. His friend Ahmed Hamid Jelu, 9, lost both legs and died at a hospital shortly afterward. Two other children — Hassan Dhaya, 7, and Muhammad’s sister, Ahlan Khudaer Muhammad — were seriously wounded (New York Times, 3 November 2008).
That week 109 civilians had lost their lives in Iraq. 10 of them were children.
The biggest and gravest casualty of the ‘war on terror’ has been life. According to Iraq Body Count, in Iraq alone nearly 208,000 civilians have lost their lives so far, of which 7,300 were children.
