Iraque: os danos colaterais
artigo completo no Guardian


The total figure of civilian deaths in the Iraqi conflict may never be known, but an investigation of random incidents reveals that whatever the total, the proportion of civilian to military deaths among Iraqis is overwhelming. A graphic illustration of this can be found in the corner of the Abu Graib cemetery on the edge of Baghdad. Here, during the days after the fall of Saddam's regime, families came to disinter the grievous legacy of that tyranny, in the form of their relatives' skeletons. But other huddles of people came, too - to bury, not recover, their dead. Most did so in family plots, but some were too poor to own such patches of land and instead placed their cadavers beneath mounds of earth in a paupers' plot outside the cemetery. The grave digger, Akef Aziz, explains that those from the military, or Fedayeen Saddam units, were also covered with an Iraqi flag. Out of a total of 916 graves in this plot, 17 are those of fighters. 'They were coming in at least 30 or 40 a day,' recalls Aziz. 'They were good times for us, because we are paid by the body.'

In war, collateral damage - as the parlance describes civilian casualties - has no human face, nor does it have a name. But here, on the following pages, are some of their stories. This is the bitter - but hidden - reckoning of war's aftermath.

The southern Iraqi town of Nasiriyah, where the American ground offensive began in earnest during the last days of March, will before long be the best known in all Iraq. This will not be because Nasiriyah was once the cradle of the Sumer dynasty and thus of civilisation; not because here, 6,000 years ago, the first syllabic alphabet was devised and first mathematical schema developed (around the figure 60, still the modern world's measurement of time). And not because the first legal code - including laws governing the conduct of war - was written and enforced. Nor will this renown be because the town of Nasiriyah is now rife with disease arising from putrid water and stinking rubbish through which children pick, looking for things to sell.

No, Nasiriyah's fame will be enshrined in Hollywood lore because it was here that US special forces rescued Jessica Lynch of the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, who went astray and was captured by the Iraqis. And most famous of all will be the first floor of Nasiriyah General Hospital, where Private Lynch was being treated when snatched in what the story emblazoned across cinema screens will narrate as a raid of daring heroism (although doctors and ancillary staff recall the episode differently: as the Americans blasted and kicked their way in, they were welcomed and shown to Private Lynch's ward, with no resistance offered). Every major American television network has since dutifully traipsed through this corridor, anxious to relive the fantasy version of the drama.