More Bush Lies and Denials coming to Light

As many of you know, I work for a news media organization, so every morning I read through the daily headlines. I can't get past one of the articles this morning, buried in the international news section, regarding child mortality rates in Iraq. It can be pretty easy, and very tempting, to bypass these articles to read up on, say, the newest details of Paris Hilton's impending incarceration - especially since it appears that articles of this nature never receive front billing in our news. I can't help but hope that many of our leaders will be forced to admit that they have been purposefully lying about the true cost of this war and the price innocent Iraqis are paying for our mistakes.

A contributing factor to my strong reaction at this news is the fact that last month one of the co-authors of the Lancet report was denied a visa to speak at the University of Washington - reportedly because of the information on Iraqi civilian deaths contained in the paper. For those who aren't familiar with the report - it suggests that civilian deaths are higher than what has been reported and that children in particular are dying at an alarming rate. The report also suggests that unlike other wars, where the majority of civilian deaths are usually caused indirectly by conflicted related issues (such as decreased access to medical care, clean water, etc), the Iraqi war fatalities are, in high number, caused directly by military violence. President Bush denounced these findings, both the numbers of Iraq civilian casualties and the cause of the casualties, and called the report "politically motivated". The methods used to collect the data by researchers is particularly fascinating, as the researchers went door-to-door to collect their information and sometimes found themselves in dangerous situations.

Articles:
Today's headline- Child Tragedy: Infant Mortality Soars in Iraq
Seattle pi - Iraqi doctor who disputes official death tolls is denied visa to visit UW
NPR interview with Dr. Gilbert Burnham, co-director of the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response at Johns Hopkins University; lead author of the study- discussing research methods and findings