ePulse Home Archive the Current Issue Contact IPPNW Homepage

An Interview with Les Roberts
<-- previous pages 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 next -->

ePulse: Actually, I was going to ask you about that. On the radio [This American Life, "What's In A Number"], you said, “I had consciously made the decision that it was worth trading my life for a chance at getting a realistic estimate of how many Iraqi civilians had died and how they had died.” You also said, “I was at peace with the notion of dying”. Where does that come from?

LR: More extraordinarily, my wife ... no she wasn’t at peace with it. She was not even close to being at peace with it. But she was willing to tolerate it.

Where does that come from? I don’t understand the question.

ePulse: I had a couple possibilities ... Does it come from a passion to right wrongs? Does it come from anger? That’s an intense personal decision.

LR: I just don’t understand this. We’re now probably close to a million Americans [that] have been willing to go risk their lives to go serve and kill in Iraq. How is it possible, in a nation that paints themselves as Christians, that my being willing to go and take a risk - perhaps comparable - in order to help document wrong-doing and serve the Iraqis, is different?

ePulse: It’s not.

LR: It’s bizarre. The way you asked it was very kind and flattering. A few people said something like I can’t really love my wife if I would leave her and go do this. We [as Americans] have this notion that it is more noble to go fight and die for your country than it is to go wage peace for your country or your species.

ePulse: I hadn’t even considered that. I’m glad I asked.

What is your experience of the reaction to your reports on Iraqi Civilian mortality?

LR: My experience this second time around ... I’m not sure anyone has made serious criticisms of it to my face other than a couple of reporters who asked questions. I think I have pretty clear responses to all the criticisms they make. A few reporters haven’t been convinced but I think that is because they have mostly made up their minds in advance of calling me. They are not calling me to collect information. They are calling me to write a piece whose basic conclusion is already formed in their mind.

ePulse: But nothing [written] really attacking the soundness of it.

LR: No scientist has. Scientists have asked good questions, but no scientist has said, “I’m convinced this is wrong because of this.” There are a couple of folks in England who have essentially said this, reporters, but I haven’t heard them say this essentially face-to-face. And I think they have another agenda. And they are not people who [have] ever done this before and who have any credibility in the field.