"This sort of violence should have been taken into account by US war planners . . ."

Someone, a politician, decided that ~140,000 troops should be enough to defeat Saddam’s army; more were not needed. When they were needed, for police duties, they were not there. It should also be remembered that once upon a time, admittedly very long ago, Bagdad was The Most Civilized City on the planet.

Perhaps there was an expectation that the inhabitants were still sufficiently civilized to maintain the rule of law and order. Either it was a bad assumption, or the things that Saddam and his people did were truly worthy of the violence we see today.

"The point of the Lancet study was to find all deaths caused by violence . . ."

Perhaps, but the Lancet effectively used its study to pin the responsibility of all 650,000+ deaths on the US. It seems that it took a considerable effort on the part of various conservative blogs to squeeze the truth out of the study.

As a side question, did Al Sadr Jr. (The Chubby) have a militia before March 2003? I recall the answer being "no", or at least they did nothing prior to March 2003; consequently I do not blame Saddam for the rise of Al Sadr’s militia.

My recollection is that his father, Al Sadr Sr., a brave man, did indeed oppose Saddam Hussein. Jr., however, kept his mouth shut under Saddam, although he is apparently implicated in whacking another cleric, prior to March 2003.

"But the level of violence in 2002 was far lower . . ."

Compare the body count 140,000-190,000 since the US toppled Saddam in 2003, vs. 290,000 (as per HRW) while Saddam ruled.

Does HRW see 290,000 as a sufficiently large number to qualify as genocide? Or do they simply object to the rate? Or do they see this as a US-bashing opportunity?

From:

"There was no current genocide in Iraq . . ."

to:

"There is no reliable number of Iraqis killed by Saddam Hussein. HRW estimated 290,000 . . ."

If we ask ourselves the question "did Saddam create the environment of violence or was he a creature of the environment of violence?", we end up with a few, perhaps undesirable, questions.

1. How did Saddam react to the environment of violence?

     It looks like he made it much worse.

2. If the environment of violence predates Saddam, there is an implication that it is systemic to the culture / civilization of the area. This points to the impossibility of a democratic state in Iraq.

Sorry, I do not, and did not, intend to hang the "defense of the Lancet Study" requirement on you. I may have implied this, by inferring meaning in your posts, and I apologize. I think that the Lancet’s methodology might be a bit flawed, but more importantly, that they (or someone) intentionally extrapolated it to the entire Iraqi population only for political purposes.

For some reason, the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... you provided (paragraph 6) indicate that al Sadr Jr. may be responsible for finishing Haidar Raifee Killidar, the custodian of a shrine. Al Sadr Jr’s culpability in the whacking al-Khoei is slightly less clear, but his alibi does not sound good.

It also points out that al-Khoei, at age 29 participated in the 1991 uprising against Saddam. Following the various links, al Sadr Jr. formed the Madhi Army in June 2003, also when he was 29 or 30, to fight the US (who apparently had no quarrel with him), instead of Saddam (who may have been involved in whacking al Sadr Sr.).

If al Sadr Jr. had any sense, he would have either 1) formed the Madhi Army years earlier (perhaps late-2001) to oppose Saddam, and thereby built up some real credibility for himself, or b) do what he did historically, but NOT attack the US and coalition forces.

But al Sadr Jr. did what he did, and there is a considerable body of opinion that says that his actions have enabled and legitimized the current violence in Iraq. Had he done nothing, or at least not attacked the local US forces, there is a very good probability that Iraq would be stable enough now, and that there would be no US troops in Iraq today. But this is useless speculation; things didn’t happen this way, and we are where we are.

"There is such a thing as personal responsibility."

Agreed, and without question.

I use Human Rights Watch’s figure of 290,000 deaths due to Saddam. By their own admission, the HRW number might be high or low.

HRW is neither a judicial nor a legislative body. They do not determine what constitutes genocide (or any other crime) and what does not, nor do they determine, for any given crime, whether a statute of limitations exists, or how long it lasts.

HRW also does not determine morality. Judging by the HRW excerpt in one of your previous posts, HRW is internally conflicted, and really can’t define how to act in a specific instance. They seem happy to evade personal and institutional responsibility and appeal to the UN, which means any action taken will be too late.

"We can justify an invasion now of the Sudan on humanitarian grounds to stop genocide in Darfur, but we cannot invade the Sudan in 2015 for the same purpose"

I’m inclined to think that the UN should move into the Sudan now (since it wasn’t done last year, or the year before) to end the killings. I think that it will be pointless to do so in 2015.

"So does that make the killings more justified?"

"Justification" seems to be a new dimension to this thread. Justification is also a cultural/religious construct. Is it really necessary to discuss this?

Saddam still seems to feel that his actions while in power were justified and legal; apparently many others today disagree, and seek revenge on those that did Saddam’s bidding. Others seem to be trying to instill fear in the general population, for one of a few reasons.