Failing Iraqis

Frequently forgotten victims of the war in Iraqi is the civilians themselves. Through a FOIA request, however, the Dayton Daily News obtained access to the U.S. Army's tort claims database.

The records provide a previously unseen portrait of the toll the war has had on civilians in Iraq, and the kinds of incidents described in the records have fueled the growing insurgency and hatred toward the American-led coalition.

Throughout the articles are stories that make it clear our troops treat the citizens they are supposed to liberate as something less than human. Claims in Iraq are rejected at a greater rate than anywhere else in the world, and the rewards when issued are much smaller than whose given in other countries:

According to the database, the average payment for a death in Iraq was $3,421, less than 1/20th of the average payment for a claim filed anywhere else.

On May 12, 2003, an Iraqi man died when a tire fell from a U.S. Army vehicle in Tikrit, and his widow received $5,000, according to Army records. On April 24, 1999, in Bath County, Ky., a female motorist suffered neck and back injuries after a tire fell from a military vehicle, and she got $50,000, or 10 times what the Iraq widow received for losing her husband under nearly identical circumstances.

The Army paid $5,000 — the same amount given the Iraq widow — to a woman who got a staple stuck in her finger at Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico.

Once again the saddest aspect of the war becomes the realization that all of this was preventable. Clearly not enough translators were available to our side, and little if any study of the culture was done:

"Our soldiers would put their hands up as a sign to stop at the (checkpoints), but we didn't do our homework on how to deal with the Iraqi people," [former assistant Army chaplain in Iraq] said. "To them, putting your hand up was a gesture or greeting, so they would just keep approaching the soldiers in their cars.

"And a lot of soldiers would just open fire, and they killed a lot of innocent people. We just didn't do enough to study the culture of Iraqis."

Medina, whose twin brother was killed in Iraq last November, said soldiers sometimes were ordered to open fire on any vehicle that didn't stop.

"In one case, there was a father, mother and three children," said Medina, whose unit arrived shortly after the shooting. "They were shot many times. The car was full of blood. There was one kid alive. He was alive for a few hours before being pronounced dead in the hospital a few hours later.... It was horrible."

It is clear that the current administration demonstrated a clear lack of foresight when planning for post war Iraq, and even now they are struggling to come to terms with events on the ground. Even poorly spun polls cannot hide the fact that Iraq is slowly slipping out of our control:

Suspicion of the United States is so great that 2/3s of Iraqis believe any civil war that breaks out would likely be instigated by America! And 22% believe that it would be instigated by Israel. More Iraqis blamed the US and its allies in Iraq for the current poor security situation than blamed foreign terrorists! And they were four times more likely to blame the US & coalition than to blame armed elements of the former regime!

About 55% say that the current interim government does not represent people like them. Only 8% enthusiastically say it represents them. Half of Iraqis blame the government for being ineffective, and only 44% think that it has been at all effective (the same 8% are enthusiastic). Allawi's effectiveness rating has fallen from 65% last July to 45% now.

Virtually none of the main points made by the IRI at its website about its own poll are valid in context, which does not exactly inspire confidence in the poll takers. The link to the poll results is given at the bottom of their page, in pdf. Go look at the slides yourself. It is not in fact a pretty picture.