Iraqi doctor estimating civilian deaths denied visa

The Seattle Intelligencer is reporting that an Iraqi epidemiologist who co-wrote the October 1966 article in The Lancet (thelancet.com) estimating Iraqi civilian deaths since the U.S. invasion at 655,000 been denied a visa to address academic audiences in the US.

This estimate is nearly 10 times larger than other studies, according to the paper.  

As kossacks know, the Pentagon refuses to estimate civilian deaths in what they have announced as an effort to avoid the Vietnam era echoes of 'body count.'  

The Brits simultaneously denied him a visa for a 4-hr stopover to Canada, where--as an alternative to the U.S. visit--he planned to broadcast his talk from Vancouver's Simon Fraser University to the audience at the Univ. of Washington, the original venue.

Now he is studying cancer rates in children in southern Iraq, and hoped to present his data to American academics.

In my opinion, a visit here would have allowed American academics an opportunity to reopen the issue of how many people have died as a result of Bush's war. For example, he could have appeared on cable or something more serious, like Charlie Rose.  

Guess State didn't want this to happen. (See their silly disclaimer quotes in the SI story, web address below.) The doctor had been working for months to get a visa.

"What we were going to hear about is a public health disaster in Iraq," said Tim Takaro, an associate professor of health sciences at Simon Fraser University. Takaro, who also conducts research with [the Iraqi researcher Riyadh] Lafta, called the 2006 study in The Lancet well-researched.  

"The magnitude of that has been lost on the American people. Both the British and U.S. governments have discounted these [civilian casualty] figures," he said.

The purpose of denying him a visa to the US and to Canada has the effect of preventing academics from examining his new children's cancer rate evidence directly, according to the story.

If he visited Vancouver, UW researchers could have driven there to meet him.

"He collected the data, and of course we need to meet him and see the [children's cancer rate] data," Hagopian said.

The SI story is at http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/...

•  Maybe a typo ?

  an Iraqi epidemiologist who co-wrote the October 1966 article in The Lancet

  by Roger Fox on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 09:40:38 AM PDT

  •  yes, I saw that too.

    It's confusing.

    by JDWolverton on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 09:50:38 AM PDT

  •  I found the right year it's 2006

    It's in the link at the bottom of the diary.

    Lafta, an epidemiologist, teaches at Al-Mustansiriya University College of Medicine in Baghdad and co-wrote an October 2006 article about Iraqi civilian deaths in The Lancet, a respected British medical journal.

    by JDWolverton on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 09:52:30 AM PDT

  •  Whoops! sorry. yup, a typo n/t

    by muddy paws on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 10:02:10 AM PDT

    •  The "edit diary" button is your friend....

      ...go ahead and enjoy the power.

      Read today the soon to be released UN report will also not have a civilian Iraqi casualty count.

      by AmericanRiverCanyon on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 10:17:46 AM PDT

    •  I remember 1966

      Just a kid.

      by Roger Fox on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 04:03:52 PM PDT

•  How sick is this governenment?

  thank you for this post.  It makes me think again how very corrupt this Administration is, how fearful of the truth and how easily they get away with this type of injustice.

  by peacevoice on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 09:50:12 AM PDT

•  One question

  How can the Brits deny him a visa to Canada?  Last I heard, Canada was a separate country with control over their own visa policy.  Has Her Royal Highness reasserted her dominion over Canada while we've been distracted with Anna Nicole?

  That said, I'm not surprised that bushie's drones would deny him a visa here. They really don't want the true nature of the devastation that they've wrought to be publicized anywhere.  

  by dougymi on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 10:09:51 AM PDT

  •  Actually

    North of the border Betty is titled "Queen of Canada" and her functions are carried out by the Governor General, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean - a black woman.

    by londonbear on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 10:19:42 AM PDT

    •  That makes a certain amount of sense,

      but it's not what he wrote.

      The Brits simultaneously denied him a visa for a 4-hr stopover to Canada

      That makes no sense whatsoever. If the British denied him a visa to GB for a transit lounge and he wanted to speak in Canada, then why didn't he fly a Canadian airline? Did Canada object to his presence? I mean, this leaves a lot of questions in my mind. Canada doesn't have an investment in the Iraq war, so why would they care?

      I'm guilty of sloppy writing as much as anyone is (and more than most), but this really needs clarification. Did Canada object? Did GB object for Canada?  I just don't understand it.

      by dougymi on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 10:43:27 AM PDT

      •  OOPS!

        meant for TK's post below.

        BTW, I know that the Queen is still technically the Leader of the Commonwealth, but she still doesn't make visa rules for Canada.

        by dougymi on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 10:44:51 AM PDT

  •  they denied him entrance to Britain

    even though he was only going to be in a transit lounge -  that's how I read the diary.   I presume that meant he was on some kind of watch list for the Brits as well?  It would help to have it explained more clearly.

    by teacherken on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 10:31:59 AM PDT

•  Another doctor spoke in his place

  last night at UW... I couldn't make it, did anyone else?

  by Jocelyn on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 10:53:21 AM PDT

  •  Here's another article

    about it from the UW student paper,

    by Jocelyn on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 10:55:11 AM PDT

    •  I need more coffee...

      sorry, here

      by Jocelyn on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 10:56:16 AM PDT

  •  I was there

    The speaker was Les Roberts, now at Columbia, who was the lead author on the first Iraq mortality paper [Lancet. 2004 Nov 20-26;364(9448):1857-64] and a co-author on the 2006 paper [Lancet. 2006 Oct 21;368(9545):1421-8].  Roberts has also worked in Rwanda, Congo, and other hot spots for the WHO.  He briefly ran for Congress in 2006, dropping out of the NY-24 race in favor of Mike Arcuri.

    Roberts was forceful and impassioned, both about the quality of the research project and about the awful effects of Bush's Folly on our national character.  The crowd in Seattle, I suspect, was quite a bit larger than it might have been had the US and/or Britain permitted Dr. Lafta to come here to speak.

    Side note about Lafta's travel arrangements -- the UW travel planner was asked why Dr. Lafta was planning to travel through Britain in the first place.  He explained that Lafta had made his own choices about how to get to Canada (which would have allowed him to enter, by the way).  There were no direct flights from Jordan to Canada, and Dr. Lafta reasoned that the UK wouldn't be a problem, since he'd lectured there as recently as 2005.

    by N in Seattle on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 01:15:50 PM PDT

•  I don't see the Charlie Rose as serious,

  I see it as rw propaganda, occasionally leavened by centrist luminaries such as Holbrook and Brezinski (who once was considered a hardliner, it's amazing to think - once a hardliner, now a softhearted centrist - I don't think he has changed, I think the zeitgeist has).

  It's sickening that the State Department would play politics like this.  When  will America be ready to impeach?

  by epppie on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 11:14:29 AM PDT

•  Bush , Blair and Harper

  don't have the courage to listen.

  A couple of days in the morgues of Baghdad would be a good thing for them, practical experience instead of ideological influence would be beneficial for all three.

  by ohcanada on Sat Apr 21, 2007 at 01:14:02 PM PDT