Stampede in Iraq

orrible news from Iraq. At a time when so much devastation is being wrought by human violence and natural disaster, the single most deadly event in Iraq since the invasion is not an act of violence, but of panic:

At least 648 people were killed in a stampede on a bridge Wednesday when panic engulfed a Shiite religious procession amid rumors that a suicide bomber was about to attack, officials said. It appeared to be the single biggest loss of life in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.

Scores jumped or were pushed to their deaths into the Tigris River, while others were crushed in the crowd. Most of the dead were women and children, Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said.

Tensions already had been running high in the procession in Baghdad's heavily Shiite Kazamiyah district because of a mortar attack two hours earlier against the shrine where the marchers were heading. The shrine was about a mile from the bridge.

And the news is getting worse:

The death toll from a stampede on a Baghdad bridge Wednesday was expected to reach 1,000, a general manager at Iraq's Heath Ministry said.

"An hour ago the death toll was 695 killed, but we expect it to hit 1,000," Dr. Jaseb Latif Ali told Reuters.

The power of fear, of human psychology, is a terrible thing to behold. Though the worst suicide attacks take dozens of lives, the fear of a suicide attack takes hundreds, perhaps thousands. What a horrible state of mind to have to live in, that a mere rumor of a suicide bomber is so credibly and immediately felt as to cause a panic, a stampede, and a tragedy. In a very real sense, the victims of this stampede are victims of the insurgency just as clearly as those killed by bullets or shrapnel.