1. The calculation is based on cumulative figures reported in the media
rather than incompletely reported individual events on specific days and times.
Because reporters were barred from entering the city during the April 2004
siege of Falluja, IBC's estimate of 572 - 616 civilians killed during the
siege is based on reported cumulative totals rather than a series of individual
reports: these are necessarily incomplete even under "normal" conditions
in the occupation, but under the restrictions just noted could only provide
glimpses of the totality of events that took place inside Falluja. (Nonetheless
IBC has gathered and made available to the public the most comprehensive
collection of information related to the human impact of the siege in its IBC
Falluja Archive, which catalogues many recorded incidents - from attacks
on ambulances to sniper fire on children - as reported in nearly 300 news
stories.)
2. The calculation uses figures reported by local hospital and NGO sources
rather than those produced towards the end of April by the Iraqi Health Ministry
There were two competing "final totals" produced for the human toll
of the siege. One set of cumulative numbers was derived from growing hospital
and NGO figures which had reached 600 by the 12th and ultimately passed 800,
swelled by deaths during a series of nominal "ceasefires" as well
as by the gradual recovery of bodies buried in the rubble of destroyed buildings
or in makeshift graves in private gardens. These numbers were reported widely
in mainstream sources, and the first 600 deaths included a breakdown showing
that 160 women and 141 children under the age of 12 were among the dead.
The other "final total" was produced by the Baghdad-based Iraqi Health
Ministry (IHM), apparently at the behest of US authorities who had dismissed
the locally-reported numbers as "somehow filtered through some of the
local propaganda machines that are operating inside Fallujah" and said
they would ask the IHM to "get a fair, honest and credible figure".
(Gen.
Mark Kimmitt, 12th April 2004).
The IHM announced their tally little more than a week later, on the 21st of
April: 264 dead, including 28 children and 24 women. This number was incrementally
increased soon afterwards to 271 and finally 280, but never reached much
beyond about a third of the locally-produced numbers. The official who first
released the IHM figure asserted that his widely-quoted colleague in Falluja
had been under "political pressure" to inflate the numbers of dead,
and that the new count had been obtained from the very same doctor; the claim
of inflated numbers [1] was repeated the following day by US-appointed Health
Minister Khudayer Abbas, who told the Associated Press (AP) that the death
figures in Falluja
"were exaggerated for political factors. There was some parties and
elements who were pressing on the people working in Fallujah hospitals to
present exaggerated numbers." [AP 22nd April].
But the Falluja medics in question have yet to alter their tallies when directly
interviewed - see for instance AP
30th April, Newsday
2nd May, and Knight-Ridder 9th May:
Dr. Rafe Hyad al Esawi, director of the Fallujah General Hospital, said the
number of people killed exceeded 800 with more than 3,000 wounded. U.S.
authorities say those figures are exaggerated, but al Esawi stood by his
numbers and said they are growing because many people could not reach the
hospital during the fighting to report deaths. "Some of the families
buried their dead in their gardens," al Esawi said. "Now they
are starting to come to the hospital to register."
Until recently both sets of numbers stood unrescinded by either party, making
it difficult to choose between them without making subjective judgements
(although the weight of evidence has always tended to support the local count,
not least because of its plausible growth during the siege, but also the
size of several temporary mass graves, as can be reviewed in the IBC
Falluja Archive). It was also difficult to obtain a useful IBC estimate
that integrated both numbers: the two sets of statistics diverge not just
three-fold on the total, but six-fold on the number of women and children
killed (301 vs. 52), which has meant that any range estimating the possible
civilian count (including male civilians) could diverge even further, resulting
in a final IBC estimate on the order of between "80 - 600."
A recent report however indicates that the IHM no longer includes any Falluja
statistics in its official counts for April 2004. The IHM official who had
produced the tally of 264 dead in Falluja had in the same interviews during
April told reporters of statistics gathered for the same period in Baghdad
(235 dead) and the rest of the country (57), making a total of 556 throughout
Iraq between April 5th and the date of his first interview on the 21st.
But recently released statistics from the IHM show only 344 violent deaths
from the 5th to the 30th of April throughout Iraq (except for three
relatively untroubled Kurdish provinces), as revealed in a detailed 25th
September Knight-Ridder report [2] providing monthly breakdowns of IHM statistics.
We judge it inconceivable that this number of 344 still includes the data
claimed for Falluja. Our judgement is based on three converging sources of
evidence, which are analysed in detail in Note [3] below.
The sole conclusion consistent with all the evidence is that for some undeclared
reason the IHM's April "Falluja count" no longer appears in their
statistic of 344 for that month, and only the better-documented figures from
Baghdad and elsewhere remain. It may be that the original figure, which was
conceivably produced in haste by an office which had only just been brought
into existence, is now considered unreliable, incomplete or inconclusive;
in any event, as that number no longer appears to contribute to official
records IBC cannot use it in its calculations (just as we would remove from
our database any entry that had been solely based on a number later withdrawn
by its source).
The only figure that remains viable for use is therefore the consistent and
unaltered count which ultimately reached 800 and came from local medical
sources. This is however a record of total deaths - IBC, given the priorities of
its work, still needed to establish an estimate of the civilian dead
among that number.
3. The calculation assumes that civilian males died in direct proportion
to the reported totals of deaths of adult women.
Of the 800 reported deaths, a breakdown giving the number of women and children
killed was available for the first 600 up to April 12th, most of whom were
killed before there were any real opportunities for them to evacuate the
city. Because the proportion of women and children killed was exceptionally
high, we conservatively assumed that civilian adult males would have been
as badly affected as their female counterparts, and accordingly assigned
to them the same number of deaths as recorded for women (160 each). This
is conservative because there are reasons other than participation in combat
for men to be killed in higher numbers than women and children, including
that they more commonly venture outdoors where they may be exposed to cross-fire,
and are more likely to be mistaken for combatants by military forces. This
still left a "surplus" of 139 adult males killed - some 23% of
total deaths, and 46% of all adult male deaths. These we designated as having
been insurgents, whom we therefore excluded from our count.
This left 200 "undefined" deaths which were recorded in Falluja from
April 13th onwards. Six unambiguous deaths of women and children recorded in
the weeks after the 13th were identified in the news stories collected in the
IBC Falluja Archive, and subtracted from the 200, leaving 194. For the remaining "undefined" 194
deaths we assumed that the proportion of fighters among the dead remained at at
least 23% of all deaths to the end of the siege, but because areas of
the city were being emptied of women and childrenin a mass exodus (but not "military
age males", who were forbidden to leave), we held that the proportion
of fighters may have climbed toward 46%, their proportion in relation only
to other adult males killed.
Reducing 194 by 46% and separately by 23% produced 105-149 as an estimate,
expressed as a range, of non-combatant civilians in the "undefined" 194.
To these numbers the six deaths of women and children known to have occurred
after the 13th of April were then added, producing 111-155 as
the range of civilians among the 200 whose deaths were recorded after the
13th. These could then be added to the 461 earlier extracted
from the pre-13th count of 600, resulting in a final IBC Min-Max
for x360 and the siege of Falluja of 572 - 616.
Additonal Notes:
[1] That Iraqi hospitals often exaggerate casualties is a
standard claim by US military officials, but this is merely asserted or conjectured,
and has never been demonstrated nor supported by evidence of any kind. In fact
the usual "inflater" of casualty statistics is the US military, although
these are always only of the "insurgents" or "bad guys" killed
- the LA Times reported on 29th April (IBC
link), for example, that "U.S. officials believe that the Fallouja
insurgents have raised their profile militarily, but have set themselves up
for a larger defeat... [and that] the fighters already have suffered 1,500
to 2,000 deaths, by U.S. military estimates." We judged the claim by Iraqi
Health Ministry officials, despite the political context of their statements,
to require taking more seriously.
[2] These may be the last such reports we see from the unit
responsible for collating casualty statistics within the IHM: immediately after
the date of the detailed and extensive statistics obtained by Knight-Ridder
(all of which, from May onwards, are consistent with other reporting, and which
had also been widely released in summary form to other major media during September),
the unit was told to stop speaking directly to the press. [AP 23 Sept.])
[3] Reasons for discounting the IHM estimated total of casulaties for
Falluja in April 2004:
Firstly, the IHM September total of 344 cannot include both
Falluja and Baghdad, the other major location for deaths during April.
We have already mentioned that the official who had released the count of 264
cited another 235 in Baghdad, and a total of 556 country-wide by April 21st.
A day later his superior, Health Minister Khudayer Abbas, told the press that
according to the IHM's nation-wide compilation, 576 "insurgents and civilians" had
been violently killed in April throughout Iraq, Falluja included [AP 22nd April].
So, between April and September, more than 230 deaths have been removed from
the April count without explanation.
Secondly, the Baghdad city morgue alone recorded more than
300 deaths due to gunfire and explosions throughout April - not unusual for
this violence-wracked city since the invasion - and the morgue figures would
be well-known to the Health Ministry. A 24th May AP
survey of Iraqi municipal morgues from which this figure is taken, and
which was able to obtain data from just four of Iraq's 18 provinces (partially
dealt with in IBC database entries x334 and x350), including Baghdad but not Al
Anbar province, where Falluja is located, counted 413 deaths in April. There
are thus, even within a partial survey encompassing just 4 Iraqi provinces
excluding Al Anbar, more recorded deaths than IHM's September-released statistic
of 344 for April which covers 15 provinces including Al Anbar. These
IHM totals must be missing Falluja.
Thirdly, the cessation of hostilities (albeit temporary) in
Falluja immediately after the withdrawal of US ground forces at the end of
April means that the city's contribution to IHM statistics for May would be
negligible. However instead of a reduction in the number of deaths, the recently
published IHM numbers jump more than two-fold from 344 in April to 749 in May
[Knight-Ridder 25 Sep]. This is inconsistent with all other reporting. May,
too, was violent, and the statistic of 749 is not unrealistic, but April is
widely acknowledged as one of the most violent of the entire occupation - not
least because of the siege of Falluja. In fact, if we subtract the IHM's highest
April count of 280 for Falluja from the newer IHM statistic of 344 for April
- leaving 64 - and accept that Falluja contributed little or nothing to IHM
statistics during May, then the rise in violence throughout Iraq (excluding
Falluja) from the end of April to the end of May is more than 11-fold. There
is no independent evidence which would remotely support such a sharp rise.
A tally comparing April 2004 with May 2004 derived from the media-reported
incidents in IBC's public database suggests a ratio of approximately 1:1 between
these two months, rather than the 1:11 which would be implied by the IHM figures.
If details later emerge that are of relevance to any of the calculations above,
IBC will adjust its figures accordingly.
