The True Cost of the War: 600,000 Iraqis Dead?

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In his current column, Wall Street Journal pundit Bret Stevens recounts this story of Condi Rice meeting with the paper’s editors last year:

[…] she said that she had telephoned George W. Bush as she flew out of Baghdad on her (then) most recent visit: “Mr. President,” she said (and I quote from memory) “this is going to be a great country.”

Meanwhile, there’s new evidence of just how far from greatness Iraq really is. A new study [PDF] in the Lancet finds that over 600,000 Iraqis may have died in the wake of the American invasion. This, as the Journal reports, is considerably higher than any previous figure, including the “30,000, more or less” that President Bush tossed out last December. That figure, as Adam Shemper wrote in the May/June issue of Mother Jones, came from Iraq Body Count, a website that has been diligently tallying reports of civilian deaths. But IBC uses a conservative, media-based approach, while the new report from Johns Hopkins uses a statistical model known as “cluster sampling.” No doubt there will be plenty of academic and partisan sniping about what the real number is. Whatever the final figure, it’s a stark reminder of the daily barrage of violence facing average Iraqis. Stephens notes that Rice did not repeat her “great country” story when he met with her recently. He chooses to remain optimistic. “Perhaps she feels that way still: It would be distressing indeed if she did not.” But wouldn’t it be just as distressing if she still thought Iraq is on the path to greatness?

Update: In this morning’s press conference, Bush said he doesn’t believe the report is credible and is “amazed that this is a society which so wants to be free that they’re willing to—you know, that there’s a level of violence that they tolerate.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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