Speaker reminds crowd high price of war in Iraq

Despite recent Congressional calls for a well-defined "timetable" regarding the withdrawal of U.S. military personnel from Iraq, American men and women in uniform continue to suffer murderous retribution.\nRick McDowell, a senior fellow for Iraq policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, spoke to more than 100 people Friday evening at the St. Paul Catholic Center located on 17th St. about the human cost involved in the U.S. military occupation of Iraq. McDowell and his wife completed a two-year term as the American Friends Service Committee Iraq Country Representatives in March 2005.\nMcDowell and his wife worked on relief and other development programs such as water, sanitation, health care initiatives, education, women's shelters and programs for disabled individuals during their wartime visit. Unlike other campus community discussions about the U.S. preemptive military attack of Iraq, the audience demographic reflected a heavy majority of 40- to 65-year-old people instead of the usual college-aged protest crowd. \nAfter a brief moment of silence, McDowell reminded the audience that more than 40 Indiana "sons and daughters" have lost their lives in Iraq out of the more than 1,700 dead American soldiers -- 86 coalition soldiers were killed within the last six weeks. Although Pentagon policy does not keep count of the Iraqi civilians killed, he said, international estimates project the Iraqi death toll upward of 100,000 civilians or more. \n"One out of four Iraqi families have lost someone," McDowell said. "In the last six weeks, more than 900 Iraqi civilians have died, 270 Iraqi police and military have died and thousands of civilians were wounded in May alone."\nAccording to The Associated Press, attacks during the weekend killed seven Iraqis, including four policeman. At least 15 other Iraqis were wounded.\nCiting the British Downing Street Memo, a 2002 document which implicates the Bush Administration for planning to manipulate American minds about the necessity of waging war against Iraq, McDowell said "no Americans were dying because of Iraqi terrorism before the war."\n"The U.S. has lost the war in Iraq. The Iraqi people have lost the war," he said. "To pretend we can win what has been lost is not believable. Iraqis' fear a civil war splintered along ethnic and religious lines more than Saddam's brutal regime."\nA suicide bomber killed at least nine Iraqi civilians in Samarra and eight Iraqi police officers were shot to death by insurgents Saturday, according to The Associated Press. At least four Marines were killed and 13 were wounded -- including 11 women -- by a suicide car bomb and ensuing small-arms fire Thursday as a U.S. military convoy rolled through Fallujah.\nMcDowell said the Bush Administration's mix of "weapons of mass destruction," "terrorism" and "Sept. 11" to justify invading Iraq equates to war as the means with no planned end in sight.\n"Police can't provide security for themselves. How can they be expected to provide security for the neighborhoods?" he asked the audience. "A judiciary system is the responsibility of the occupying country ... Security is important but so is (Iraqi) jobs ... They have a right to resist the occupancy (of a foreign invader) as in every other war. Outside forces are not going to bring peace and security to Iraq."\nMcDowell's presentation included a slide show of photographs involving ordinary Iraqi men, women and children to share the "human face" of the war.\nMcDowell stunned the crowd with Pentagon claims of spending about $4 billion thus far to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, considering about one of every three Iraqis does not have continual access to electricity, clean drinking water or adequate health care. He said more than half of the $1 billion a week spent by the U.S. to secure Iraq is cashed by security forces for U.S. corporations like Halliburton.\nBecause media reports and international estimates claim about 18,000 Iraqi insurgents are engineering the current violence against American military occupation forces, up from about 5,000 a year ago, McDowell asked the audience: "Are we safer?" \n"Only Iraqis can bring peace and security to Iraq," he said. "We have an opportunity to support Iraqis in a move to a peaceful nation among the community of nations ... The U.S. needs to declare we do not have imperial designs for the country ... Everybody agrees -- the insurgency will continue to grow as long as foreign soldiers occupy their land."\nIn front of a crucified Jesus nailed to the wall in the basement of St. Paul Catholic Center, McDowell encouraged the American audience to ponder one question in particular regarding the invasion and occupation of Iraq as the nation attempts to cope with an unrelenting Iraqi insurgency: "How would each American act if the U.S. was invaded and occupied by a foreign military"