By Brian Carnell

Thursday, January 24, 2002

In discussing the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Noam Chomsky has made a lot of hay over the Clinton administration's attack on a pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan. In a recent interview published in Salon.Com, for example, Chomsky told Suzy Hansen,

That one bombing, according to the estimates made by the German Embassy in Sudan and Human Rights Watch, probably led to tens of thousands of deaths.

The only problem with this claim is that Human Rights Watch has not conducted any sort of study related to this incident. Carroll Bogert, Communications Director, Human Rights Watch, wrote a letter to Salon.Com saying,

In fact, Human Rights Watch has conducted no research into civilian deaths as the result of U.S. bombing in Sudan and would not make such an assessment without a careful and thorough research mission on the ground.

We have conducted research missions and issued such estimates for Iraq and Yugoslavia, after U.S. bombing campaigns there. In our experience, trenchant and effective criticism of U.S. military action requires factual investigation.

Next up -- is the German embassy estimate also a phantom?

Source:

Noam needs a fact checker. Carroll Bogert, Salon.Com, January 22, 2002.

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