Iraq Mortality - Mainstream Media, Comments from Authors of Mortality Studies, News Items

Co-Author of Medical Study Estimating 650,000 Iraqi Deaths Defends Research in the Face of White House Dismissal

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 07:15:04 -0500

Co-Author of Medical Study Estimating 650,000 Iraqi Deaths Defends Research in the Face of White House Dismissal

Thursday, October 12th, 2006

The White House is dismissing the findings of a medical study that says 650,000 people have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion. The study was conducted by American and Iraqi researchers and published in the prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet. We’re joined by the report’s co-author, epidemiologist Les Roberts. [includes rush transcript]

More than 650,000 people have died in Iraq since the U.S. led invasion of the country began in March of 2003. This is according to a new study published in the scientific journal, The Lancet. The study was conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. Researchers based their findings on interviews with a random sampling of households taken in clusters across Iraq. The study is an update to a prior one compiled by many of the same researchers. That study estimated that around 100,000 Iraqis died in the first 18 months after the invasion.

Iraqi Dead May Total 600,000, Study Says

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 01:26:12 -0500

October 11, 2006
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
New York Times

BAGHDAD, Oct. 10 — 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.

Study Shows Civilian Death Toll in Iraq More Than 100,000

Thu, 15 Dec 2005 16:14:48 -0600

...I’m even more struck that here a year after our study came out, the first time the President has been asked about this was not by a reporter, but by someone from the public when he took a question.
-Les Roberts

On the 1,000th day of the U.S. war on Iraq, we look at a subject that usually receives little attention -- the Iraqi civilian death toll since the war began. We speak with Dr. Les Roberts, the lead researcher of a study released last year on the number of deaths in Iraq, which put the toll at more than 100,000. [includes rush transcript] President Bush was asked about the Iraqi civilian death toll on Monday following his speech at the Philadelphia World Affairs Council.

Q: Since the inception of the Iraqi war, I'd like to know the approximate total of Iraqis who have been killed. And by Iraqis I include civilians, military, police, insurgents, translators.

THE PRESIDENT: How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We've lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq.

Washington-based NGO calls for accurate civilian death toll

Thu, 15 Dec 2005 15:59:47 -0600

Report, IRIN

14 December 2005

BAGHDAD -- A Washington-based humanitarian organisation urged the US government this week to accurately count and identify all civilian casualties of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, following a recent announcement by US President George Bush that 30,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed to date.

"CIVIC believes the US military needs to keep statistics on civilian casualties, particularly those caused by US actions in Iraq," read a statement from the Campaign for Innocent Victims of Conflict (CIVIC).

Tara Sutton, Acting Field Director of CIVIC, said she believed that records were only being kept "to a certain extent" in the form of "after-incident reports" filed by the US military after any armed engagement.

Secrets of the Morgue: Baghdad's Body Count

Wed, 17 Aug 2005 04:24:55 -0500

Source: The Independent
by Robert Fisk
August 17, 2005

Bodies of 1,100 civilians brought to mortuary in July Pre-invasion, July figure was typically less than 200 Last Sunday alone, the mortuary received 36 bodies Up to 20 per cent of the bodies are never identified Many of the dead have been tortured or disfigured

The Baghdad morgue is a fearful place of heat and stench and mourning, the cries of relatives echoing down the narrow, foetid laneway behind the pale-yellow brick medical centre where the authorities keep their computerized records. So many corpses are being brought to the mortuary that human remains are stacked on top of each other. Unidentified bodies must be buried within days for lack of space - but the municipality is so overwhelmed by the number of killings that it can no longer provide the vehicles and personnel to take the remains to cemeteries.

New Calls for Coalition Forces to Count Iraqi Casualties

Fri, 29 Jul 2005 02:59:52 -0500

Source: OneWorld US
by Abid Aslam
July 29, 2005

WASHINGTON, D.C., Jul 28 (OneWorld) - At least 24,865 Iraqi civilians have died since the U.S.-led coalition began its war in their country but the real figure is unknown because coalition forces, flouting the Geneva Conventions, refuse to aid an accurate count, said a leading medical journal.

"The adamant refusal of the U.S.A. and its partner countries to keep count of Iraqi deaths is a stance that renders farcical the Geneva Conventions' principle that invading forces have a duty to make every effort to protect civilian lives," said an editorial in this week's issue of The Lancet, released late Thursday. "How can the coalition attest that it respects this obligation if it refuses to collect data to prove it?"

Almost 25,000 civilians killed in Iraq in two years: study

Tue, 19 Jul 2005 03:11:37 -0500

Source: Agence France-Presse
July 19, 2005

LONDON, July 19 (AFP) - Almost 25,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since US and British troops invaded the country two years ago, an average of 34 every single day, a British study said on Tuesday.

More of the deaths overall have been caused by the actions of foreign troops than insurgents within the country, the study by Iraq Body Count and the Oxford Research Group said. However, the report stresses that the vast majority of civilian deaths caused by US and British troops took place in the weeks following the start of war in March 2003, while currently far more deaths occur due to insurgency.

New Study Raises Iraq Death Toll

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 05:55:48 -0500

Source: The Age
by Irwin Arieff
July 13, 2005

Nearly 40,000 Iraqis have been killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since the US-led invasion. It is a figure considerably higher than previous estimates, a Swiss institute reported yesterday.

The public database Iraqi Body Count, by comparison, estimates that between 22,787 and 25,814 Iraqi civilians have died since the March 2003 invasion, based on reports from at least two media sources.

No official estimates of Iraqi casualties from the war have been issued, although military deaths in the US-led coalition forces are closely tracked and now total 1937.

Iraqi civilian casualties

Tue, 12 Jul 2005 02:54:48 -0500

Source: United Press International
July 12, 2005

An Iraqi humanitarian organization is reporting that 128,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion began in March 2003.

Mafkarat al-Islam reported that chairman of the 'Iraqiyun humanitarian organization in Baghdad, Dr. Hatim al-'Alwani, said that the toll includes everyone who has been killed since that time, adding that 55 percent of those killed have been women and children aged 12 and under.

'Iraqiyun obtained data from relatives and families of the deceased, as well as from Iraqi hospitals in all the country's provinces. The 128,000 figure only includes those whose relatives have been informed of their deaths and does not include those were abducted, assassinated or simply disappeared.

The number includes those who died during the U.S. assaults on al-Fallujah and al-Qa'im. 'Iraqiyun's figures conflict with the Iraqi Body Count public database compiled by Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies. According to the Graduate Institute of International Studies' database, 39,000 Iraqis have been killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since March 2003. No official estimates of Iraqi casualties from the war have been issued by the Pentagon, which insists that it does not do "body counts." The Washington Post on July 12 reported that U.S. military deaths in Iraq now total 1,755.

Why Numbers Matter

Mon, 18 Apr 2005 02:29:29 -0500

Source: AlterNet
by Marla Ruzicka
April 18, 2005

Just before her death, Marla Ruzicka wrote about the importance of recording and publicly releasing Iraqi civilian casualty numbers.

BAGHDAD --The writer, a 28-year-old humanitarian aid worker from California, was killed Saturday in Baghdad when a suicide bomber aiming for a convoy of contractors pulled alongside her vehicle and detonated his explosives. Her longtime driver and translator, Faiz Ali Salim, also died. She filed this piece from Baghdad a week before her death.

In my two years in Iraq, the one question I am asked the most is: "How many Iraqi civilians have been killed by American forces?" The American public has a right to know how many Iraqis have lost their lives since the start of the war and as hostilities continue.

Iraq insurgency has killed 6,000 civilians

Tue, 5 Apr 2005 03:14:21 -0500

Source: Reuters
by Luke Baker
April 5, 2005

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas and criminal gangs have killed 6,000 Iraqi civilians over the past two years and wounded 16,000, according to the first comprehensive government estimate of the toll from the insurgency.

"These people in the insurgency are involved in looting, terrorism, killing, kidnapping, drug dealing, beheading and all that," Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin told Reuters on Tuesday.

"There are around 6,000 Iraqis who have been killed by these people and 16,000 who have been wounded," he said, citing figures compiled from records kept by the health, human rights, interior and other ministries.

Iraq allies accused of failing to investigate civilian deaths

Fri, 11 Mar 2005 03:31:10 -0600

Source: The Guardian
by Sarah Boseley
March 11, 2005

Experts in public health from six countries, including the UK, today castigate the British and American governments for failing to investigate the deaths of civilians caught up in the conflict in Iraq.

Twenty-four experts from the UK, the US, Australia, Canada, Spain and Italy say the attitude of the governments is "wholly irresponsible". They say the UK government's reliance on "extremely limited data" from the Iraqi ministry of health is "unacceptable" because it is likely to seriously underestimate the casualties.

Counting the casualties

Wed, 3 Nov 2004 23:49:30 -0600

Source: The Economist
November 4, 2004

A statistically based study claims that many more Iraqis have died in the conflict than previous estimates indicated

THE American armed forces have long stated that they do not keep track of how many people have been killed in the current conflict in Iraq and, furthermore, that determining such a number is impossible. Not everybody agrees. Adding up the number of civilians reported killed in confirmed press accounts yields a figure of around 15,000. But even that is likely to be an underestimate, for not every death gets reported. The question is, how much of an underestimate?

Study: Iraq Invasion Has Killed 100,000 Civilians

Mon, 1 Nov 2004 03:54:01 -0600

Source: Democracy Now!
by Amy Goodman and Les Roberts November 1, 2004

The study entitled "Mortality Before And After The 2003 Invasion of Iraq: A Cluster Sample Survey" appears in Britain's foremost medical journal "The Lancet" and was conducted by researchers at Columbia University, Johns Hopkins and Al-Mustansiriya in Baghdad.

The estimated number of deaths of 100,000 is considerably higher than previous estimates. The study found the rise in the death rate was mainly due to violence and much of it was caused by U.S. air strikes on towns and cities. Most of the victims were women and children.

The U.S. military claims it does not keep tallies on civilian casualties but the London Independent is reporting that the Pentagon does collect data on Iraqi casualties and is keeping the results classified. The U.S.-backed interim Iraqi government has also suppressed casualty figures. An official at the Iraqi Health Ministry who was compiling data from hospital records last year was ordered by a superior in December to stop.

Study puts civilian toll in Iraq at over 100,000

Sat, 30 Oct 2004 05:06:59 -0500

Source: International Herald Tribune
by Elisabeth Rosenthal
October 30, 2004

More than 100,000 civilians have probably died as direct or indirect consequences of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, according to a study by a research team at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

The report was published on the Internet by The Lancet, the British medical journal. The figure is far higher than previous mortality estimates. Editors of the journal decided not to wait for The Lancet's normal publication date next week, but instead to place the research online Friday, apparently so it could circulate before the U.S. presidential election.