Re: Boycott Brand America

On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 19:14:35 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Charles Hawtrey)
wrote:
>Some numbers the anti-war crowd would rather not think about:
<..>
>Number of Kurds, Turkomans, and Assyrians forcibly expelled from their
>homes by Saddam:
>120,000
>http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraq0303/Kirkuk0303.htm

As far as I can trace from the source given, the figure 120,000
adds up  figures HRW has received from  the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK) (94,950), the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Arbil
province (16,772) -- to which has been added an estimated 5000 (*)
Turkomans and 'several thousand' Kurds and Assyrians from Duhok
province.  (* the Iraqi Turkoman Front has given  a figure of 2867 as
of Sep 2002)

A mix of earlier estimates and later systematic data collection by the
named parties seems to have been added up  in these figures. The de
facto  relocation of people  - of whatever degree of volition or  lack
thereof -  rather than  expulsion by force by the Iraqi government
seems to have been  the criteria for inclusion.

A claim that Saddam  forcibly expelled 120,000 Kurds, Turkomans 
and Assyrians from their homes would seem to me to be misrepresenting 
the source, as well as  overstating the evidence (and in the general
direction of making Saddam look bad ;-)

But,  lest we forget, this has very little to do with war. 
The war was about Iraq's WMD. Where are they?

  '(M)ake no mistake -- as I said earlier -- we have high 
confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. 
That is what this war was about and it is about.' 
(Ari Fleischer, 10 April 2003)