Mark Anderson is asking who should be held to account for all the Iraqi civilians killed since the US invasion.

Using these techniques, IBC reports between 90,400 to 98,700 civilian deaths to date. This conservative floor remains much higher than Bush administration claims of somewhere in the 15K+ region.

When this argument has continued for awhile, it is likely that no single study will prevail, but that the method of counting by randomized, direct survey will be the most accurate method. It is hard to make the argument, outside of scientific circles, that ethics or war crimes tribunals will distinguish between whether there were 100K deaths officially recognized by media and government, or 600K civilians actually killed, or twice that figure.

Who is responsible for these deaths? Why did these people die? For what? Non existent WMDs? Non existent Iraqi Al Qaeda?

Let’s say George Bush’s idea of Pre-emptive War has just killed something like 500k-1MM innocent civilians in Iraq, and that the war itself was a mistake. Or, much more worrisome, along Clarke’s lines, it was not a mistake at all. According to one of Rumsfeld’s top aides, who took notes at a meeting on 9.11, Rumsfeld wanted to go after Saddam “whether or not he was relevant” to the 9.11 attack.

Now what happens? Golf in Dallas? Cheney speechifying in Jackson Hole? Rummy rewriting history?

Now what happens?

And what about our own Revd. Blair’s responsibilities in this matter?