Tweet
Blair challenged to tally Iraq war dead
Gulf Daily News, Bahrain
Dec 8 2004
LONDON: British diplomats and peers joined scientists and churchmen
to urge Prime Minister Tony Blair to publish a civilian death toll
in the Iraq war even as gunmen bombed two churches in the Iraqi city
of Mosul yesterday and insurgents killed an American in Baghdad,
taking the US combat toll to 1,000.
In an open letter to the premier, the 44 signatories said Blair had
rejected other death counts from the war - figures span 14,000 to
100,000 - without releasing one of his own.
The group urged Blair to commission an urgent probe into the number
of dead and injured civilians and keep counting so long as British
soldiers remain in Iraq.
"Your government is obliged under international humanitarian law to
protect the civilian population during military operations in Iraq,
and you have consistently promised to do so," they wrote in the letter.
The inquiry, they added, should be independent of government, conducted
according to accepted scientific methods and subjected to peer review.
Signatories included Air Marshal Sir Timothy Garden, who spent 32 years
in the military; Sir Stephen Egerton, a former British ambassador to
Iraq; human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger and the Lord Bishop of
Coventry, Colin Bennetts.
Meanwhile, another American was killed in Baghdad, taking the US
combat toll to 1,000.
The soldier killed was on patrol in Baghdad when guerillas opened
fire with rifles.
At least four Iraqi National Guard troopers were also killed in two
incidents, one in the capital and another further south.
No one was killed in the bombings in Mosul; smoke billowed from
one of the northern city's Armenian churches and one of its oldest
Chaldean churches was ablaze and a wall shattered. The attackers were
not identified.
"Gunmen came in, took the guard's weapon and a couple of mobile
phones. Then they made everybody leave the church. After that there
was an explosion that did a lot of damage," a worshipper said.
Gulf Daily News, Bahrain
Dec 8 2004
LONDON: British diplomats and peers joined scientists and churchmen
to urge Prime Minister Tony Blair to publish a civilian death toll
in the Iraq war even as gunmen bombed two churches in the Iraqi city
of Mosul yesterday and insurgents killed an American in Baghdad,
taking the US combat toll to 1,000.
In an open letter to the premier, the 44 signatories said Blair had
rejected other death counts from the war - figures span 14,000 to
100,000 - without releasing one of his own.
The group urged Blair to commission an urgent probe into the number
of dead and injured civilians and keep counting so long as British
soldiers remain in Iraq.
"Your government is obliged under international humanitarian law to
protect the civilian population during military operations in Iraq,
and you have consistently promised to do so," they wrote in the letter.
The inquiry, they added, should be independent of government, conducted
according to accepted scientific methods and subjected to peer review.
Signatories included Air Marshal Sir Timothy Garden, who spent 32 years
in the military; Sir Stephen Egerton, a former British ambassador to
Iraq; human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger and the Lord Bishop of
Coventry, Colin Bennetts.
Meanwhile, another American was killed in Baghdad, taking the US
combat toll to 1,000.
The soldier killed was on patrol in Baghdad when guerillas opened
fire with rifles.
At least four Iraqi National Guard troopers were also killed in two
incidents, one in the capital and another further south.
No one was killed in the bombings in Mosul; smoke billowed from
one of the northern city's Armenian churches and one of its oldest
Chaldean churches was ablaze and a wall shattered. The attackers were
not identified.
"Gunmen came in, took the guard's weapon and a couple of mobile
phones. Then they made everybody leave the church. After that there
was an explosion that did a lot of damage," a worshipper said.