650,000 died in iraq?

[toms]

I see that the lancet is now estimating that about 650,000 extra deaths may have taken place since the war in iraq began.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/6040054.stm

This is a controversial figure, as its much higer than previous esitmates, but it uses a statistical approach that has been used in many other countries, so in theory it should be reasonably accurate.

The margin of error is pretty large: 390,000 to 900,000. But even the lower figure is pretty huge.

Infact, even the lower figure is more than saddam is thought to have killed in his 24 years in power.

(unless you include the 500,000 killed in the war with iran.. but we supported that didn't we?)

Apparently we are likely to need current troop levels in iraq until 2010.

[generalvaklu321]

650,000 is high, but that seems about right. Over a hundred die every day. And is only rising. So 650000, I think it's true.

[Mace MacLeod]

I've seen projected casualty rates from the major US news sources drop so many times it's not funny. At the start of the invasion, they were happily trumpeting the numbers of "enemy combatants" killed, maimed or wounded, but then they just stopped one day and subsequently began announcing that they didn't keep track of Iraqi deaths. I swear I've seen them announce the 3000th US military death about 5 times.

650k does seem high to me, though. Of course, we're unlikely to know the full extent until the civil war-lite thing the Sunnis and Shiites have going finally calms down.

[Jae Onasi]

Originally Posted by Mace MacLeod

I swear I've seen them announce the 3000th US military death about 5 times.

650k does seem high to me, though. Of course, we're unlikely to know the full extent until the civil war-lite thing the Sunnis and Shiites have going finally calms down.

650k sound really high to me, too.


Military deaths--since those are not classified (except in very unusual intelligence cases), it's unlikely that the military would lie about that, because any person who has any reasonable level of researching skill could go online and track the numbers of funerals. Also, it's real easy for the clerks who process the paperwork for the dead soldiers (and there are a lot of clerks doing that--the med team, dental, psych and chaplain and finance for the family, etc.) to figure out numbers of dead. All it takes is one set of loose lips and the press would go nuts if the military was out-right lying. The numbers may not be 100% up to date (because they want to make sure to notifiy next-of-kin before releasing public info), but the casualty rate is going to be pretty accurate.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

900 000? If that's the true figure, I reckon history book authors will be quite reasonably pissed.

Sigh, even 300 000 is 300 000 too many.