UK - How the BBC thinks

Or doesn't.

Scott takes the BBC's Paul Reynolds to task over Paul's article on Iraq.

In that article, Paul tried to show there is some confusion on the number of Iraqi deaths.

Thousands of people have died. The true number of Iraqi deaths is not known and even the Iraqi Body Count figure -- compiled largely from news reports -- of somewhere in the mid 30,000s is criticised as a possible underestimate and admitted by IBC to be a baseline. The British medical journal The Lancet suggested a figure of about 100,000 back in October 2004.

There are several things wrong with this. One, Paul fails to mention that the 30,000 figure is for civilians, including Clerics, politicians and Police - no matter how or who killed them. All have been targeted by terrorists, gangs and sectarian violence.

Second, is the much debunked Lancet report. I find Paul's response to Scott on this point both amazing and revealing.

"I neither found the figure credible nor incredible It was simply a figure. I reported it. . What's the problem?"

What's the problem?!? Paul, just admitted he used a figure that he did not find credible. That fact that Paul didn't find it incredible is beside the point. The point is, he didn't find it credible but he used it anyway.

They're not just simply figures. The IBD figures are designed to try and blame the US for these "civilian" deaths. Likewise the Lancet figures were inflated to attack the US. Paul knew both and yet he "reported it". Sure he did, because it fits his and the BBC's anti-American agenda.

Read the rest of Scott's post for some more insight into the Beebs thinking.
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