The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
“So there
were points at which, yes, it would have been desirable, but how do
you
achieve
that objective? Do you put other lives at risk to do that? I would
say no.”
243.
The Inquiry
asked if it was the MOD’s function to develop estimates of
civilian
casualties,
or that of another department. Mr Ingram told the
Inquiry:
“Unquestionably.
Is it something that DFID could have funded? Is it something
the
FCO should
have taken ownership care of? The UN had become engaged – it
was
still
engaged, but not in terms of presence on the ground – is it a role
that they
should have
played? Yes. Of course the answer to that is yes.
“But what –
the very establishment of the facts would not have changed what
was
happening.
It would have confirmed what everyone knew, but it wouldn’t have
led to
a solution
…”
There are
two broad approaches to determining the number of fatalities
attributable to a
conflict:
•
Incident, or
passive, reporting. This approach, which aims to capture
direct
conflict
deaths, typically involves the collation of reports from the media,
other
non‑government
and government sources. Its accuracy depends in part on
the
accuracy
and completeness of those reports. Access to conflict‑affected
areas
(or to
particular communities) may be difficult, and there may be pressure
to
distort
information. Incident reporting frequently undercounts the number
of
direct
conflict deaths.
•
Estimates
derived from a survey of part of a population. This
approach
typically
aims to estimate the number of excess deaths caused by
conflict,
by
extrapolating from the data produced by a survey. Those excess
deaths
would
include both direct deaths (caused by war‑related injuries) and
indirect
deaths
(caused by the worsening of social, economic and health conditions
in
a
conflict‑affected area). The accuracy of such estimates can be
undermined
by a lack
of detailed, baseline mortality data (and conflicts often occur in
areas
without
such information, or lead to the disintegration of the systems
which
provide
it), the selection of an unrepresentative sample, the methodology
used,
and the
conduct of the survey.
244.
The IBC
project, founded in 2003 by UK and US volunteers, aims to record
the
violent
civilian deaths resulting from the 2003 military intervention in
Iraq.154
It
draws
its
evidence from cross‑checked media reports of violent events or of
bodies being
found,
supplemented by the review and integration of hospital, morgue, NGO
and
154
Iraq Body
Count website.
214