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UK finally starts to count Iraqi casualties

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, April 28, IRNA -- The British government has revealed that it 
is finally going to start to count the number of Iraqi casualties more
than 13 months after the invasion by UK and US forces. 
"We do our best to count civilian casualties now," Foreign Office 
Minister for the Middle East Baroness Symons said at a debate on 
Amnesty International`s recent damning report on the first year of the
Anglo-American occupation of Iraq on Tuesday. 
The reversal of policy comes after 52 former British ambassadors 
said it was `a disgrace that coalition forces themselves appear to 
have no estimate` of Iraqis killed in a letter to Prime Minister Tony 
Blair warning that his Middle East policy was doomed to failure. 
"Phrases such as `We mourn each loss of life. We salute them and 
their families for their bravery and their sacrifice`, apparently 
referring only to the coalition side, are not well judged to moderate 
the passions these killings arouse," their letter said. 
UK ministers have previously dismissed repeated requests from MPs 
during the past year for estimates of the number of Iraqis killed and 
injured. 
But during the House of Lords debate, Symons adopted a more 
conciliatory tone saying that she `genuinely` wished that the UK could
count the civilian casualties. 
"We have done our best to count them but I am bound to say to the 
noble Baroness that the practicalities involved are very difficult 
indeed," she told Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Northover, who asked 
whether she agreed with the views expressed by the former diplomats. 
In response to Amnesty`s allegations of torture, deliberate 
destruction of property and killing of unarmed civilians in Iraq, the 
Foreign Office minister said she was concerned by the reports but 
suggested that they were mainly attributed to US actions. 
"The allegations in these reports are very serious but the 
majority of the allegations are not about British personnel," she 
said. 
"We do not have the power to investigate other allegations but we 
urge countries whose nationals are accused to make their own 
investigations," Symons said. 
HC/AH/210