Iraqi Civilian Deaths Massive by Any Measure

[babylonsister]

Iraqi Civilian Deaths Massive by Any Measure
by Haider Rizvi


UNITED NATIONS - How many Iraqi civilians have lost their lives as a result of gunshots and bombings since the U.S. military invaded that oil-rich Arab nation nearly five years ago?

Credible estimates for the period March 2003 until June 2006 have ranged from a high of 600,000 to about 47,000. The first figure was reported by researchers from Johns Hopkins in The Lancet, a venerable British medical journal, back in October 2006. The second one was projected by the independent organisation Iraq Body Count (IBC).

This week, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Iraqi Health Ministry released a joint survey suggesting that no less than 151,000 Iraqis died violently during that time frame.

The U.S. government does not tally violence-related Iraqi deaths, not does it intend to. However, a little over a year ago, President George W. Bush casually suggested that the numbers could be around 30,000.

So which figures are reliable? It is difficult to say for certain, although there is no doubt that the U.S. military invasion and occupation is largely responsible for the huge loss of human life in Iraq.

According to WHO and Iraqi researchers, since the invasion, violence has been the leading cause of death for Iraqi men between the ages of 15 and 59. About half of these deaths have taken place in the capital city of Baghdad, according to the survey, which was largely based on interviews with more than 9,000 households in nearly 1,000 villages and neighbourhoods across the country.

The study did not attempt to determine whether the deaths were caused by Coalition Forces, militia groups or others. It also omits the period of the most intense sectarian violence from mid-2006 to mid-2007.

The findings and methodology of the study, entitled “Violence-Related Mortality in Iraq from 2002 to 2006″, were published in the Jan. 8 online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

The survey indicates that a year after the U.S. invasion, about 128 Iraqis were dying every day. That average remained more or less the same until June 2006 when the study was completed.

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http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/12/6342/