Body Counts: The Biopolitics of Death

Abstract

The body count of dead American soldiers in Iraq now exceeds 2,000.² To date, there is no official body count of Iraqis killed—civilian or combatant³—in this most recent war on terror. U.S.-led coalition forces have not kept count, and in the words of General Tommy Franks; “We don’t do body counts.” Iraq Body Count, a nongovernmental organization unofficially sponsored by the United States and United Kingdom, estimates the civilian deaths resulting directly from coalition military action between 28,000-32,000 casualties.⁴ A number of independent studies, however, such as the much-denounced study led by Dr. Les Roberts and published by the Lancet, have estimated the number of Iraqi civilian casualties at more than 100,000, an estimate that Dr. Roberts claims is based on rather conservative assumptions.⁵ In responding to this study a Pentagon spokesperson stated: “[T]his conflict has been prosecuted in the most precise fashion of any conflict in the history of modern warfare.”⁶ While the loss of any “innocent lives” is tragic, he went on to say, and something coalition forces have worked hard to avoid, there is no way to confirm the accuracy of the report and, more importantly, that any report on civilian casualties must consider how “former regime elements and insurgents have made it a practice of using civilians as human shields, operating and conducting attacks against coalition forces from within areas inhabited by civilians.”⁷

Where was the dead body found? Who found the dead body? Was the dead body dead when found? How was the dead body found?

Who was the dead body?

Who was the father or daughter or brother Or uncle or sister or mother or son Of the dead and abandoned body?

Was the body dead when abandoned? Was the body abandoned? By whom had it been abandoned?

Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?

What made you declare the dead body dead? Did you declare the dead body dead? How well did you know the dead body? How did you know the dead body was dead?

Did you wash the dead body Did you close both its eyes Did you bury the body Did you leave it abandoned Did you kiss the dead body

—Harold Pinter, “Death”¹