'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

The youngest of the 2,081

If you go to this site, you will find the results of the survey that Raed Jarrar and his team from CIVIC have done, that identified and listed 2,081 Iraqi civilian casualties from the first four months of the US government's attacks against Iraq, March 21 - July 31, 2003.

Big thanks to Riverbend, who sent me to Raed's site--and who has a new post of her own up on her blog, too.

Profound thanks and appreciation to Raed and all the 150 volunteers on the CIVIC team for their work. Doing the careful counting and evaluation was really important, as was their success in starting to put names and biographical details to many of the casualties.

Raed says about the civilian casualties:

Two thousand killed, Four thousand injured.

Each one of these thousands has a life, memories, hopes. Each one had his moments of sadness, moments of joy and moments of love.

In respect to their sacred memory, I would appreciate it if you could spend some minutes reading the database file: read their names, and their personal details, and think about them as human beings, friends, and relatives -- not mere figures and numbers.

He adds the following definitions:

Civilian: anyone killed outside the battlefield, even if his original job was military (e.g. a soldier killed in his house is a civilian). Military: anyone killed while fighting in a battle, even if his original job was a civic one (e.g. an engineer killed while fighting as a Fidaee). We had primitive and simple tools of research, yet I believe our survey is credible and accountable.

I wanted to provide here some of the flavor of the tables in which he presents his data, which give important details like the occupation, monthly income, and number of dependents for each of those killed. (Maybe for the wounded, too. I didn't check yet.)

However, I found I couldn't 'copy and paste' any data from the form the way it was presented. (Is there a trick there that someone can tell me?) But what I did instead was type into my handy Palm Pilot the listing below, which gives all the names the teams gathered of children under one year of age who were killed in the US attacks.

The ages of those killed went up to the very elderly, including three 85-year-olds and two 91-year-olds. But here, anyway, are the very youngest. Say a prayer for their souls if that fits with your beliefs. But anyway, send some compassionate thoughts to the grieving family members who lost these loved ones because of my government's immoral launching of that war.

Read them and weep (again).

Muhsen Numan Musa al-Ardawy, < 1 month, shrapnel

Frsa Gwad Kathem al-Asbae, 1month, burns

Bnet Hmed Hade Unes, 2 months, shrapnel

Tabarek Hamzaa Taleb, 4 months, missile

Nethem Hbeb Gasem Al-Saade, 4 months, shrapnel

Noor Saad, 6 months, missile

Mohamed Marzuk Farhan al-Ajme, 6 months, bullets

Mustafa Ghanem Johe, 6 months, shrapnel

Aumar Mahamed Jaasem, 8 months, bomb

Zmen al-Abden Klel Thaef, 8 months, aircraft attack

Mohsen Basem Naji, 8 months, shrapnel

Ali Talb Gwad Abas, 8 months

Rkea Hmza Mnshad al-Hgebe, 8 months, shrapnel

Yasser Farouq Foaad, 9 months, broken in his head (bomb)

Zuhair Alali Hussein, 9 months, shock

Fatma Khalel, 9 months, missile

Mstfa Alaa Gasem al-Gmale, 11 months, tank attack