The Catastrophic Military Occupation of Iraq is Rarely Described Accurately in the U.S. Media
The Catastrophic Military Occupation of Iraq is Rarely Described Accurately in the U.S. Media
By Kevin Zeese
An Interview with independent journalist Dahr Jamail “The bogus idea that if the U.S. leaves things will worsen is both inherently racist and ignorant.”
Dahr Jamail’s MidEast Dispatches, which can be seen at http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com, are essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what is happening in Iraq. (You can sign up on the site to receive his reports via email.) Dahr has spent a total of 8 months in occupied Iraq as one of only a few independent US journalists in the country. In the MidEast, Dahr has also has reported from Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Jamail writes for the Inter Press Service, The Asia Times and many other outlets. His reports have also been published in The Nation, The Sunday Herald, Islam Online, the Guardian, Foreign Policy in Focus, and the Independent to name just a few. Dahr Jamail’s current book, Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, can be purchased on-line or in book stores.
Kevin Zeese: Compare you experiences in Iraq with how the media generally described the events. Do you think most people, Americans in particular, are getting an accurate picture of what has occurred in Iraq? Is occurring in Iraq?
Dahr Jamal: From the invasion until now, with few exceptions the so-called mainstream media in the West has portrayed a drastically different picture of what Iraq is really like under U.S. military rule. We regularly see stories from the military point of view, and rarely, if ever, how catastrophic the occupation has made life for the average Iraqi. Thus, most people are in no way getting an accurate picture of what has occurred, or what is occurring today. For example, how many mainstream outlets cite the only scientific survey which has been done to tally the number of Iraqis killed? Known as the Lancet report, and conducted by scientists from John’s Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health in conjunction with Iraqi doctors from al-Mustanceriya University in Baghdad, it found that 655,000 Iraqis had died as the direct result of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation. Over 90 percent of the people they tracked had death certificates provided by family members to the researchers. Yet the mainstream media does not cite this survey, which was authenticated by British Government. Why not? This is but one example of countless examples.
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Indexed under: IPS, IPS Reports