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PROJECT CENSORED'S Top 25 News STORIES CENSORED'S PROJECT STORIES Top News The Project Censored team draws attention to the many important national and global news stories that received little or no coverage by the US corporate media during 2007-08. ach year, the Project Censored team from Sonoma State University, California, selects and evaluates thousands of published news stories by journalists working in the national and international mainstream as well as the alternative press. Students, faculty staff and community experts participate in this process, which ultimately decides on the top 25 stories that were the most underreported by the US corporate media. Following is an edited summary of the Project Censored 2009 selection, covering the March 2007-April 2008 period. To see the full report with sources and updates, visit http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/ category/y-2009/. To order a copy of the Censored 2009 yearbook, visit http://www.projectcensored.org/store. — Editor The Project Censored team 1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation As at the beginning of 2007, over one million Iraqis met violent deaths as a result of the 2003 invasion, according to a study conducted by the prestigious British polling group, Opinion Research Business (ORB). These numbers suggest that the invasion and occupation of Iraq rivals the mass killings of the last century. The human toll exceeds the 800,000 to 900.000 believed killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and is approaching the number (1.7 million) who died in Cambodia's infamous "killing fields" during the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s. Authors Joshua Holland and Michael Schwartz point out that the dominant narrative on Iraq—that most of the violence against Iraqis is being perpetrated by Iraqis themselves and is not the responsibility of the US and its allies—is ill conceived. Interviewers from the Lancet report of October 2004 (Censored 2006, no. 2) asked Iraqi respondents how their loved ones died. Of deaths for which families were certain of the perpetrator, 56 per cent were attributable to US forces or their allies. Schwartz suggests that if a low pro-rata share of half the unattributed deaths were caused by US forces, a total of approximately 80 per cent of Iraqi deaths were directly US perpetrated. Even with the lower confirmed figures, by the end of 2006 an average of 5,000 Iraqis had been killed every month by US forces since the beginning of the occupation. However, the rate of fatalities in 2006 was twice as high as the overall average, meaning that the American-perpetrated average in 2006 was well over 10,000 per month, or over 300 Iraqis every day. With the surge that began in 2007, the current figure is likely even higher. Schwartz points out that the logic to this carnage lies in a statistic released by the US military and reported by the Brookings Institution: for the first four years of the occupation, the American military sent over 1,000 patrols each day into hostile neighbourhoods, looking to capture or kill "insurgents" and "terrorists". Since February 2007, the number has increased to nearly 5,000 patrols a day if we include the Iraqi troops participating in the American surge. Each patrol invades an average of 30 Iraqi homes a day, with the mission to interrogate, arrest or kill suspects. In this context, any fighting-age male is not just a suspect but a Compiled by Project Censored © 2008 Directed by Dr Peter Phillips Professor of Sociology Sonoma State University 1801 East Cotati Avenue Rohnert Park, CA 94928, USA http:/Avww.projectcensored.org Compiled by Professor of Sociology Sonoma State CUI) Rohnert Park, CA 94928, USA http:/Avww.projectcensored.org NEXUS ¢ 11 Project Censored © 2008 Directed by Dr Peter Phillips 1801 East Cotati Avenue DECEMBER 2008 — JANUARY 2009 www.nexusmagazine.com