[E-rundbrief] Info 152 - RB 114 - US-Wunderwaffe; Irak: 100.000 zivile Opfer

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 152 - RB Nr. 114 - Harald Neuber: Wunderwaffe des Tages. 
US-Mikrowellenkanone gegen Aufständische und Demonstranten im Test; 
Scientific study says war has cost 100,000 Iraqi lives

Bad Ischl, 30.10.2004

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Wunderwaffe des Tages

US-Mikrowellenkanone gegen Aufständische und Demonstranten im Test

Harald Neuber

Nach und nach entpuppt sich der Irak-Krieg als gigantisches 
Experimentierfeld für Washingtons Rüstungsindustrie. Wie die 
US-amerikanische Militärzeitschrift Stars and Stripes in ihrer aktuellen 
Ausgabe berichtet, sollen bis zum kommenden Sommer vier bis sechs neuartige 
Strahlenkanonen in das besetzte Land geschafft werden. Auf Geländewagen 
montierte Antennen werden dort bei Bedarf Mikrowellen mit einer Frequenz 
von 95 Gigaherz abstrahlen, die knapp einen Millimeter in die Haut 
eindringen. Eingesetzt werden soll die neue Wunderwaffe gegen Demonstranten 
und Aufständische. Von den Strahlen getroffen, verspürten die einen 
unerträglichen Schmerz und liefen auseinander. Gesundheitlich sei dies 
völlig ungefährlich, wie Militärs versichern. Soweit die Theorie. Die 
Praxis könnte anders aussehen.

Tatsächlich verfügt das »Büro für eine Transformation der Streitkräfte« der 
US-Armee über keine Langzeitstudie, die über gesundheitliche Folgeschäden 
Aufschluß gibt. So geht es dann auch im Irak nicht um den Einsatz »humaner« 
oder »nichttödlicher« Waffen, sondern um systematische Feldversuche. 
Darstellungen der Entwickler über die Unbedenklichkeit der Systeme sind 
keinen Pfifferling wert. Schließlich wurde auch zu Beginn des 
Vietnamkrieges versichert, daß der Einsatz des Entlaubungsmittels Agent 
Orange völlig unbedenklich sei. Doch bis heute werden in Vietnam durch die 
Verseuchungen mißgebildete Kinder geboren. Kein US-amerikanischer Militär 
wurde dafür je zur Verantwortung gezogen.

Wie damals in Vietnam nutzt die nationale Rüstungsindustrie die 
US-Gewaltherrschaft im Irak für Menschenversuche. Wie Stars and Stripes in 
einem Nebensatz erwähnt, sind bereits jetzt zahlreiche weitere sogenannte 
nichttödliche Waffen mit akustischer und optischer Wirkung in Irak im 
Einsatz. Bestehen sie die »Probezeit« nicht, wird die Öffentlichkeit wohl 
erst in Jahren oder Jahrzehnten über die Folgen informiert. Spätestens 
dann, wenn keiner der Verantwortlichen mehr belangt werden kann.

Kommentar - "Junge Welt" v. 24.09.2004

Quelle: http://www.jungewelt.de/2004/09-24/003.php

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Scientific study says war has cost 100,000 Iraqi lives

29.10.2004

The first scientific study of the human cost of the Iraq war suggests that 
at least 100,000 civilians have lost their lives since their country was 
invaded in March 2003.

More than half of those who died were women and children killed in air 
strikes, researchers say.

Previous estimates have put the Iraqi death toll at around 10,000 - ten 
times the 1,000 members of the British, American and multi-national forces 
who have died so far.

But the study, published in The Lancet, suggested that Iraqi casualties 
could be as much as 100 times the coalition losses. It was also savagely 
critical of the failure by coalition forces to count Iraqi casualties.

The figures provoked a furious response last night in West-minster. Clare 
Short, the former cabinet minister who resigned over the war, said: "It is 
really horrifying. When will Tony Blair stop saying it is all beneficial 
for the Iraqi people since Saddam Hussein has gone? How many more lives are 
to be taken? It is no wonder, given this tragic death toll, that the 
resistance to the occupation is growing.

"We have all relied on Iraqi body counts from media reports. That is 
clearly an under-estimate and this shows that it was a very big 
under-estimate. It is truly dreadful. Tony Blair talks simplistically about 
it getting better in Iraq. These figures prove it is just an illusion."

MPs said the assault on Fallujah expected after the US presidential 
election next Tuesday would add to the growing death toll among civilians. 
The figures are certain to provoke fresh demands at the Commons next week 
for Mr Blair to avoid further civilian deaths.

Alan Simpson, a member of Labour Against the War, said: "Iraq has not seen 
this scale of slaughter since its war with Iran. At some point, the 
slaughter of civilians in the name of peace has to become a crime of war. 
This is not a matter of indifference but criminality. These figures are 
horrific, but it is a scandal that the world remains silent."

A spokesperson for the Stop the War Coalition said: "The number of dead has 
exceeded even our worst fears. This war has been shown to be based on lies 
and to be illegal. It now turns out to be one of the bloodiest in modern 
times. We must withdraw our troops now and allow the Iraqis to run their 
own country."

Public health experts from the United States and Iraq who carried out a 
survey of 1000 households in 33 randomly selected neighbourhoods of the 
country in September say that heart attacks, strokes and chronic illness 
were the main causes of death before the invasion. Afterwards, violence was 
the main cause of death.

Violent deaths were reported from 15 of the 33 neighbourhoods and the risk 
was 58 times higher in the period after the invasion than before it.

Les Roberts of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins 
University in Baltimore, Maryland, said: "Making conservative assumptions, 
we think that about 100,000 excess deaths or more have happened since the 
2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths, 
and air strikes from coalition forces accounted formost violent deaths."

The Lancet, which published the research in its online edition yesterday, 
said it was "a remarkable piece of work by a courageous team of 
scientists," which had been completed under testing circumstances.

More households in more neighbourhoods would have improved the precision of 
the findings but only at "an enormous and unacceptable risk to the team of 
interviewers who gathered the data."

Richard Horton, the editor, said: "Despite these challenges, its central 
observation - namely that civilian mortality since the war has risen due to 
the effect of aerial weaponry - is convincing. This result requires an 
urgent political and military response if the confidence of ordinary Iraqis 
in the mostly American-British occupation is to be restored."

The researchers recruited seven Iraqi team members who were willing to risk 
their lives to interview households about deaths that occurred from January 
2002 to March 2003 and from March 2003 to September 2004.

In the 988 households visited, which were randomly selected, there were 46 
deaths in the 14.6 months before the invasion and 142 deaths in the 17.8 
months after it.

Of the 142 deaths, half (73) were caused by violence. More than two-thirds 
of these violent deaths - 52 - happened in the Fallujah area, scene of the 
heaviest fighting. The researchers say this makes Fallujah a "statistical 
outlier" which may not be representative of the rest of Iraq. They 
therefore excluded it from their calculations.

The researchers are savagely critical of the US General Tommy Franks for 
his widely quoted remark that "we don't do body counts". They say that the 
Geneva Convention requires occupying forces to protect the civilian 
population, and add the fact that more than half of the deaths caused by 
them were women and children is "cause for concern".

The Lancet said it had received the study at the beginning of October and 
it had been "extensively peer-reviewed, revised and edited". It had been 
fast-tracked to publication "because of its importance to the evolving 
security situation in Iraq".

http://tinyurl.com/6maqa

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3605297&thesection=news&thesubsection=world

http://www.focusweb.org/main/html/Article528.html?POSTNUKESID=c2a28cd1e55980f3feea110b880dd27b

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Matthias Reichl

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