Dead in Iraq. Estimates now 600,000

Sir Tokyo Sexwale · October 11, 2006

A team of American and Iraqi public health researchers has estimated that 600,000 civilians have died in violence across Iraq since the 2003 American invasion, the highest estimate ever for the toll of the war here.

The figure breaks down to about 15,000 violent deaths a month, a number that is quadruple the one for July given by Iraqi government hospitals and the morgue in Baghdad and published last month in a United Nations report in Iraq. That month was the highest for Iraqi civilian deaths since the American invasion.

But it is an estimate and not a precise count, and researchers acknowledged a margin of error that ranged from 426,369 to 793,663 deaths.

It is the second study by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. It uses samples of casualties from Iraqi households to extrapolate an overall figure of 601,027 Iraqis dead from violence between March 2003 and July 2006.

The findings of the previous study, published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, in 2004, had been criticized as high, in part because of its relatively narrow sampling of about 1,000 families, and because it carried a large margin of error.

The new study is more representative, its researchers said, and the sampling is broader: it surveyed 1,849 Iraqi families in 47 different neighborhoods across Iraq. The selection of geographical areas in 18 regions across Iraq was based on population size, not on the level of violence, they said.

The study comes at a sensitive time for the Iraqi government, which is under pressure from American officials to take action against militias driving the sectarian killings.

In the last week of September, the government barred the central morgue in Baghdad and the Health Ministry ? the two main sources of information for civilian deaths ? from releasing figures to the news media. Now, only the government is allowed to release figures. It has not provided statistics for September, though a spokesman said Tuesday that it would.

The American military has disputed the Iraqi figures, saying that they are far higher than the actual number of deaths from the insurgency and sectarian violence, in part because they include natural deaths and deaths from ordinary crime, like domestic violence. Macca - Only Americans could call death from domestic violence 'ordinary' crime

But the military has not released figures of its own, giving only percentage comparisons. For example, it cited a 46 percent drop in the murder rate in Baghdad in August from July as evidence of the success of its recent sweeps. At a briefing on Monday, the military?s spokesman declined to characterize the change for September.

The military has released rough counts of average numbers of Iraqis killed and wounded in a quarterly accounting report mandated by Congress. In the report, ?Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,? daily averages of dead and wounded Iraqi civilians, soldiers and police officers rose from 26 a day in 2004 to almost 120 a day in August 2006.

The study uses a method similar to that employed in estimates of casualty figures in other conflict areas like Darfur and Congo. It sought to measure the number of deaths that occurred as a result of the war.

It argues that absolute numbers of dead, like morgue figures, could not give a full picture of the ?burden of conflict on an entire population,? because they were often incomplete.

The mortality rate before the American invasion was about 5.5 people per 1,000 per year, the study found. That rate rose to 19.8 deaths per 1,000 people in the year ending in June.

full article

ADDITION:

The Department of Defense has identified 2,731 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans yesterday:

ARVANITIS, Nicholas A., 22, Cpl., Army; Salem, N.H.; 82nd Airborne Division.

AUSTIN, Shane R., 19, Pfc., Army; Edgerton, Kan.; First Armored Division.

BRIGHT, Dean R., 32, Pfc., Army; Roseburg, Ore.; Fourth Infantry Division.

BURKE, Timothy R., 24, Specialist, Army; Hollywood, Fla.; Fourth Infantry Division.

JOHNSON, Carl W. II, 21, Cpl., Army; Philadelphia; Second Infantry Division.

MOUDRY, Christopher O., 31, Staff Sgt., Army; Baltimore; Fourth Infantry Division.

OBOURN, George R. Jr., 20, Specialist, Army; Creve Coeur, Ill.; Fourth Infantry Division.

19, 20, 21...kinell. I was necking acid in Blackpool at that age

Des · October 11, 2006

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