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Huge Iraqi death estimate sparks controversy

Authors of study deny accusations of political bias.

Have over 650,000 people, or 2.5% of the population, really died in Iraq as a result of the US-led invasion?

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on October 11, 2006 06:45 PM |

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Thanks for this story. This paragraph was particularly interesting: 'Pederson also points out that the pre-invasion death rate recorded by the Al Mustansiriya team is very low. Figures from the United Nations Children's' Fund from before the war put the number at around 13 deaths per thousand per year. If correct, this suggests almost no increase that can be attributed to the conflict.'

It'd be interesting to see a reference for this UNICEF figure. I've tried Googling it, but all the figures I can find from that organisation relate to child mortality, as you might expect given their remit.

(I also find it interesting that Ms Burnham, in response to this criticism, cites CIA figures about pre-war Iraq. Given the anti-war stance taken by the Lancet editor and Professor Roberts, one of those who worked on the study, do they usually see the CIA as an accurate source?)

Posted by: Tim Lopakhin | October 12, 2006 11:10 AM

If the intensity of the constant heavy air bombing that iraq was subjected to at the start of the invasion and the increasing violence since is anything to go by the number of civilian dead will be for sure an extremely high number.
The actual figure is irrelevant in any case, suffice to say a very large percentage of deaths need not have occured and according to ratified declarations totally illegal.

Posted by: stinky | October 12, 2006 11:12 AM

I think it`s a very realistic figure if it includes all deaths including natural deaths, which then of course under such situations aren`t exactly natural.
Increased stress and a compromised infrastructure of course also takes its toll.

Posted by: lo | October 12, 2006 04:58 PM

RE: iraq deaths
Some points;
1-if you accept the 2004 estimates from the prior Lancet paper, then the avg number of deaths per month in the country since the summer of 2004 exceeds 26,000
2- it is unlikely that the Kurdish north is overrepresented in these numbers and is likley underepresented;
3- a biological scientist in Basrah, with whom I've been in regular contact with since 1992 (he was a presenter at last years Ecological soc of america meeting in montreal[ sic!]) only writes about isolated and targetted assasinations (he and others believe Iran sends over assassination lists)--so it would seem the second largest city in Iraq is also contributing little to this 26,000 deaths per month that have supposedly occurred;
4-why is no one addressing the lower limits of the 95% CL of these estimates (ESPECIALLY the lower CL of the 2004 lancet article!!!)

Posted by: stephen grabe | October 13, 2006 01:04 AM

They said reports of deaths were backed up by a death certificate in 92% of the 629 cases. If this is the case why didn't they just visit where the certificates were issued and get the overall death figures. Won't that be more complete and accurate?

Posted by: Yellowcow | October 13, 2006 07:30 AM

1 dead for every 4 randomly selected home. That's bad no matter how you look at it. (They interviewed 1,840 random people and found over 547 dead)

If you think about it we've dropped over 240,000 cluster bombs. We'd be fools to think they didn't kill anyone. Add in gunfire and car bombs and 600,000 dead doesn't seem that big.


http://cityofbrass.blogspot.com/2006/10/600000-dead-in-iraq-is-reasonable.html

Posted by: Engineer | October 13, 2006 05:35 PM

Since I have been cited as saying that UNICEF states that the pre invasion mortality was 13/1000, I should correct slightly. UNICEF provides a 2004 mortality of 10, and a 1990 of 9. UNPD says 9.7 for 2000-2005. Neither of these figures changes the argument, though.

Posted by: Jon Pedersen | October 14, 2006 09:08 AM

Hello, the editor here - Apparently the UNICEF figure comes from UN Population Division statistics (http://www.un.org/popin/), so you should be able to find it on that website...

Posted by: nicola jones | October 16, 2006 10:24 AM

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