Tim Blair discusses the latest UN report, of approximately 24,000 dead as of a year ago. This is from an article on the UN’s analysis of Iraq, “Iraqis Soldier on Without Power, Water, Jobs, Sewers.” (Via Instapundit, then Worstall). Of course, the Times hits a nicely humanist point:
Staffan di Mistura, the UN’s No 2 in Iraq, said that the only encouraging finding was that the situation could have been even worse, were it not for the Iraqi people, who still managed to survive in the face of impossible challenges.
This tenacity is demonstrated by the large number of civilian deaths we now hear about daily: these deaths are often of men stubbornly applying for work as policemen, wanting to give the simple civil order that’s necessary to fix the other problems. The murderers of such people (and those in the marketplaces) are not always Iraqis and want neither civil order nor a democratic, rebuilt Iraq. (As the title indicates, this may not be the emphasis the Times or, at least, the UN wants us to take away.)
[See Shannon’s collected Lancet critiques here. JG]