by Jim Paine

I received an email recently from a critic who believed I did Ward Churchill a disservice by not addressing his assertions (I'm assuming that my critic was speaking of my "Churchill Like A Pro" editorial, which was published here a few weeks ago and more recently republished at the Hawaii Reporter website). Here's the entire email (I've omitted only the critic's name):

Dear Mr. Paine:

It would help your credibility some if you could actually attempt to refute some of the things Churchill says rather than just attempting to characterize them as negative. Perhaps the frustration that is apparent in your article comes from your inability to refute Churchill's allegations? I'm not a backer of Churchill per se, just a seeker of the truth. If you have exculpatory information that exonerates the US from the historical charges Churchill makes, please publish it. Without that, your article comes off as just naked complaint.

In August 1995, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) gave officials from the Iraqi Ministry of Health a questionnaire on child mortality and asked them to conduct a survey in the capital city of Baghdad. On the basis of this five-day, 693-household, Iraq-controlled study, the FAO announced in November that "child mortality had increased nearly five fold" since the pre-sanctions era. As embargo critic Richard Garfield, a public health specialist at Columbia University, wrote in his own comprehensive 1999 survey of under-5 deaths in Iraq, "The 1995 study’s conclusions were subsequently withdrawn by the authors....Notwithstanding the retraction of the original data, their estimate of more than 500,000 excess child deaths due to the embargo is still often repeated by sanctions critics."

In March 1996, the World Health Organization (WHO) published its own report on the humanitarian crisis. It reprinted figures -- provided solely by the Iraqi Ministry of Health -- showing that a total of 186,000 children under the age of 5 died between 1990 and 1994 in the 15 Saddam-governed provinces. According to these government figures, the number of deaths jumped nearly 500 percent, from 8,903 in 1990 to 52,905 in 1994.

Somehow, based largely on these two reports -- a five-day study in Baghdad showing a "five fold" increase in child deaths and a Ministry of Health claim that a total of 186,000 children under 5 had died from all causes between 1990 and 1994 -- a New York-based advocacy group called the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) concluded in a May 1996 survey that "these mortality rates translate into a figure of over half a million excess child deaths as a result of sanctions."

Ahem. Obviously, then, many refutations--including the presentation of facts contradictory to Churchill's main assertions--are readily available. I found the Reason article cited above by googling "500,000 dead Iraqi children" (though I admit I'd read the article a couple of months ago, but couldn't remember where I'd seen it).

To be fair, perhaps my "seeker of truth" critic has been looking for the truth in the wrong place. I can only offer this helpful advice: Pull it out and look around. The truth, as they say, is out there. Not up there.