To the editor:

Most of us, regardless of political persuasion, would consider individual responsibility for our actions as something we value highly. We as citizens also must bear responsibility for the actions of our government — for all the consequences whether intended or not. It is vital that we understand the full impact of our invasion of Iraq so that we can make better-informed decisions in the future.

One issue of concern quite clearly would be civilian casualties. Unfortunately, our government has made essentially no attempt to assess the effects on the civilian population. The policy has been either to ignore civilian casualties entirely or to rely on limited data from the Iraqi Ministry of Health. There has been no official attempt to count deaths due to violence, much less the deaths due to disruption of the social system because of war.

The best estimate of civilian deaths due, directly or indirectly, to the invasion was nearly 100,000 based on a household survey done last year. That would be about half the death toll of Hiroshima.

Last week The British Medical Journal published a statement by a group of public health experts from the United States, Great Britain and several other countries calling for our governments to commission “a comprehensive, independent study of Iraqi war-related casualties.” You will know that our government is taking seriously the dreadful responsibility of going to war when you see the results of such a study.

Joe Douglas,

Lawrence