Originally posted on sciy.org by Ron Anastasia on Thu 09 Nov 2006 02:31 PM PST  

The Associated Press

Iraqi health minister estimates 140,000-150,000 Iraqis killed by insurgents

For every person killed, about three have been injured in violence since the U.S.-led invasion, Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari said at a news conference in Vienna.

Al-Shemari initially said he estimated that at least 150,000 had died, but in a follow-up interview with The Associated Press late Thursday, he said it could be in the range of 140,000 to 150,000.

"Each day we lost 100 persons, that means per month 3,000, per year it's 36,000, plus or minus 10 percent," al-Shemari said. "So by three years, 120,000, half year 20,000, that means 140,000, plus or minus 10 percent," he said, explaining how he came to the figures.

"Since three and a half years, since the change of the Saddam regime, some people say we have 600,000" killed, he said. "This is an exaggerated number."

Al-Shemari said insurgent attacks were exhausting his ministry's finances, and that hospitals were in need of aid.

"We need help. We need donations," he said.

Al-Shemari — who said he came to Austria to meet with construction and pharmaceutical companies and Austria's Chamber of Commerce — also said the United States should let Iraq assume full control of its army and police force. Doing so, he said, would allow the Iraqi government to bring the violence under control within six months.

"The army of America didn't do its job ... they tie the hands of my government," said Al-Shemari, a Shiite allied to the anti-U.S. radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who heads Iraq's biggest Shiite militia.

"They should hand us the power. We are a sovereign country," he said, adding that as a first step, U.S. soldiers should leave Iraq's cities.

The government of Nouri al-Maliki has been pressuring the United States to speed up the handover of power to the Iraqi army. The Shiite-dominated leadership wants to see U.S. forces quickly pulled out of Iraqi population centers and repositioned in U.S. bases as a first step toward an eventual withdrawal.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, has said he believes Iraqis should be able to control the country's security in 12-18 months.

The health minister said he was pleased by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation, and expressed hope that his successor would "pay a little attention to our needs and understanding."

"We are happy that he is gone, and we hope that the new minister understands the situation in Iraq and acts positively with my prime minister and Cabinet," he said.

Al-Shemari said Iraq needed at least 10 years to rebuild its infrastructure, and that the medical situation in the country was "gloomy."

There was a shortage of medical supplies, which sometimes took months to reach the country from abroad, while roadblocks prevented people from getting to hospitals, he said. No hospital has been built in Iraq since 1983, and the country's 15,000 available hospital beds were well short of the 80,000 beds needed.

The minister also noted that many doctors had left the country.

"We need help from anybody," Al-Shemari said.

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