President Bush had to personally contradict this figure of 655,000 deaths in Iraq (in a press conference today) ever since the US forces entered that country more than three years ago. This may give rise to the controversy that whether an average Iraqi was safer under Saddam Hussein regime than under the control of the US troops.
Says a news report: “The death toll among Iraqis has reached an estimated 655,000 since the US-led invasion three-and-a-half years ago, a study published in Britain’s medical journal The Lancet said Wednesday.
“This meant that people were dying in Iraq at more than three times the rate before the invasion, research from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, showed. ‘This clearly is a much higher number than many people have been thinking about,’ said Gilbert Burnham, the report’s lead author and a professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at the university.
“The study found that as many as 654,965 more Iraqis may have died since hostilities began in March 2003 than would have been expected under pre-war conditions.
“In total around 2.5 per cent of the Iraqi population were said to have perished as a result of the war, mostly through violence.”
Even CNN agrees that the methodology followed by those who conducted the study cannot be easily rubbished. If the fatalities figure is correct, this may become the blackest mark against the Bush administration in its “war on terror” for not caring about innocent human life.
Says the BBC: “John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHBSPH) estimate that the mortality rates have more than doubled since the invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein, causing an average of 500 deaths a day.
“The John Hopkins researchers argue their statistical approach is more reliable than counting dead bodies, given the obstacles preventing more comprehensive fieldwork in the violent and insecure conditions of Iraq.
“While critics point to the discrepancy between this and other independent surveys (such as Iraq Body Count’s figure of 44-49,000 civilian deaths, based on media reports), the Bloomberg School team says its method may actually underestimate the true figure.
“The survey suggests that most of the extra deaths – 601,000 – would have been the result of violence, mostly gunfire, and suggests that 31% could be attributable to action by US-led coalition forces.”
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.