Iraq: A country drenched in blood - nearly three-quarter million Iraqi deaths

Remember this?

At a meeting on December 12, 2002 [George Tenet] said to have assured the President that the evidence against Saddam amounted to a "slam dunk case," [...]. The search following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by U.S., British and international forces has proved unproductive and no stockpiles of WMD were found following the occupation of the country.

Well it has resulted in this:

Four years to the day after US and British troops invaded Iraq, its people are full of fear. Iraqis often have a look of half-suppressed panic in their eyes as they tell how violent death has touched them again and again.

"I have fled twice in the past year," said Kassim Naji Salaman as he stood beside his petrol tanker outside the town of Khanaqin in central Iraq this weekend. "I and my family used to live in Baghdad but we ran for our lives when my uncle and nephew were killed and we moved into a house in the village of Kanaan in Diyala."

Mr Salaman hoped he and his family, all Sunni, would be safer in a Sunni district. But almost everywhere in Iraq is dangerous. "Militiamen kidnapped my brother Natik, who used to drive this tanker, and forced him into the boot of their car," he continued. "When they took him out they shot him in the head and left his body beside the road. I am frightened of going back to Kanaan where my family are refugees because the militiamen would kill me as well."

Happy birthday, Erik!


Whole article: Iraq: A country drenched in blood

More: The US invasion has caused nearly three-quarter million Iraqi deaths