GUEST,ifor - 02 Jan 07 - 12:27 PM

I do not believe that I am fleeing in the face of FACTS, quite the contrary. On the other hand I do believe that that you seem incapable of recognising a fact when it stares you in the face - Example - Over a period of seventeen years Soviet Russia provides 68.9% of ALL weapons to Saddam Hussein, while during the same period the USA provides Saddam Hussein with 0.5% of ALL weapons - According to you USA was the major supporter and provider of weapons to Saddam Hussein - Now I would say that the facts state otherwise.

Now for the points made in your post:

"Shock and Awe was opened with the launching of hundreds of cruise missiles and thousands of bombs dropped from the big bombers based in Britain and elsewhere."

Certainly the campaign was opened with such an aerial assault, but that was not "Shock and Awe". Now go away and find out how long that level of attack was maintained for. Once you have done that, compare that to the bombing campaign that was employed as the opening to Desert Storm (Two months). Also compare targets, when you have done that you will see clearly the difference between the two, the first, Desert Storm, WAS "Shock and Awe", the latter campaign was not, it couldn't be for very well founded reasons.

"The missiles and bombs blew up mosques,markets,apartment blocks and hospitals.It was a ghastly and indiscriminate attack on the civilian population of Baghdad.There were many casualties."

Incorrect, estimated Iraqi fatalities resulting from the Desert Storm bombing campaign were put at about 150,000 (Iraqi Government Figures) of that number 35,000 Iraqi civilians had died. During the March 2003 invasion (The period of your supposed "Shock and Awe" campaign) Abu Dhabi TV reported on April 8 that Iraqi sources claimed 1,252 civilians had been killed and 5,103 had been wounded in this conflict. The antiwar IraqBodyCount project, via monitoring and compiling media reports of Iraqi civilian casualties, estimates between 1,631 and 1,887 civilians had died as of April 17.

By the way, do not confuse the terms "Casualties" and "Fatalities". Casualties = Dead + Wounded; Fatalities = Dead only.

Now Ifor, logically tell me why it would be that "Shock and Awe" could be used in 1991, but could not be used in 2003. There is a perfectly logical reason, now you demonstrate to all on this forum, your ability to examine facts and come up with a reasoned logical explanation, not one born of emotion, rhetoric and myth.

Oh, and Ifor just because, "...media commentators boasted about Shock and Awe at the time" does not necessarily mean that it happened, or are you one of the many who implicitly believe EVERYTHING you read in the newspapers.

I also see now that YOU personally now attribute all of the John Hopkins WAG ballpark figure of 630,000 "Deaths" to this latest campaign, by, "death squads, phospherous shells, napalm , depleted uranium munitions, torture, kidnappings,sexual assaults and the indiscriminate fire of US soldiers and mercenaries alike". Well I hate to tell you this Ifor but NOT EVEN the statisticians at John Hopkins would go along with that.

GUEST,ifor - 02 Jan 07 - 04:13 PM - your response to Slag:

"The 630000 deaths I mentioned in a previous posting comes from that well known Baathist organisation The John Hokins University in America which has conducted a survey of Iraqi households to arrive at that round figure."

Oh, Ifor would that they actually had "conducted a survey of Iraqi households", which, I know, sort of gives the impression that this was an extensive survey carried out nationwide throughout Iraq. It wasn't Ifor it was "batch" sampling in selected areas, John Hopkins did not have their people carrying out this survey, and those carrying-out this survey on behalf John Hopkins did not even bother to obtain confirmation of actual deaths. There was no cross-check made to filter out duplication of data from surveyors talking to different members of the same family about deaths within that family.

By the way Ifor, I am still waiting for something from you, and anybody else who waves this highly inaccurate and discredited statistic about like a flag as being the gospel truth, is an acknowledgement, that what the John Hopkins Study ACTUALLY STATES is that XXX Iraqi Civilians MAY HAVE DIED - It DOES NOT state that XXX Iraqi Civilians HAVE DIED. I take it that you have actually read the Lancet Article where the Report was published? Or is this just something that you picked up because it happens to be something you would like to believe because it suits your purpose.