madkins
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It is not death, but dying, which is terrible.
Henry Fielding (1707-1754)
Iraq civilian toll 'more than 100,000'
Correspondents in Baghdad
October 30, 2004
MORE than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March last year, according to a new scientific study.
The toll far exceeds all previous estimates, and the survey's publication yesterday - just days before the US presidential election - was bound to cause controversy by reinforcing the impression that events in Iraq were out of control.
The research, done in Iraq this September by a team of US and Iraqi scientists, was published on the online edition of The Lancet.
It suggests that the majority of civilian deaths have been due to military activity, with those caused by violence rising sharply in recent months.
The coalition forces
keep records of casualties among their own troops, but neither the US nor Britain h
as attempted to count how many civilians have been killed.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has previously estimated 10,000 civilian deaths.
A group of British academics called Iraq Bodycount, which compiles figures from witness accounts and media reports, recently put the number at between 14,160 and 16,289. Britain's Defence Ministry was yesterday sceptical about the new study's findings. "No figures that are produced are reliable at this stage," a spokesman said.
The report was compiled by a team led by Les Roberts, a public health expert from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore in the US.
They surveyed households in 33 regions of the country. They then compared civilian mortality rates before and after the invasion.
Independent statisticians who have analysed the data said yesterday that the scientists' methodology was stron
g, and the civilian death count could well be conservative.
They said the work effectively rubbished suggestions by U
S authorities that civilian bodycounts were impossible to conduct. In coming to a total of 100,000 civilian deaths, the team excluded Fallujah, where two-thirds of violent deaths recorded had occurred.
Experts said that including this area, where collecting data remains highly dangerous, would push the number of civilian deaths much higher.
Dr Roberts said yesterday that the death toll from bombing suggested a pressing need to alter air strike strategies.
"We can say with absolute confidence that both mortality and violent deaths have gone way up," he said. "Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess deaths or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths, and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths."
Overall, the risk of death w
as found to be 2.5 times greater after the invasion. The risk was 1.5 times higher if mortality around the hotspot of Falluja was excluded.
The survey's
publication came as Japan's embassy in Baghdad said it was checking a report that the body of an Asian had been found in Iraq, as fears mounted over the fate of a Japanese hostage threatened with death. Japanese news agency Kyodo reported the body had been found in Tikrit, 180km north of Baghdad, but was unable to say whether it was kidnapped Japanese Shosei Koda, 24. Tokyo had rejected demands by the al-Qa'ida-linked insurgents holding Koda that Japan withdraw its 600 soldiers from Iraq by late Thursday, local time.
Skara Brae,
madkins
Henry Fielding (1707-1754)
Iraq civilian toll 'more than 100,000'
Correspondents in Baghdad
October 30, 2004
MORE than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March last year, according to a new scientific study.
The toll far exceeds all previous estimates, and the survey's publication yesterday - just days before the US presidential election - was bound to cause controversy by reinforcing the impression that events in Iraq were out of control.
The research, done in Iraq this September by a team of US and Iraqi scientists, was published on the online edition of The Lancet.
It suggests that the majority of civilian deaths have been due to military activity, with those caused by violence rising sharply in recent months.
The coalition forces
keep records of casualties among their own troops, but neither the US nor Britain h
as attempted to count how many civilians have been killed.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has previously estimated 10,000 civilian deaths.
A group of British academics called Iraq Bodycount, which compiles figures from witness accounts and media reports, recently put the number at between 14,160 and 16,289. Britain's Defence Ministry was yesterday sceptical about the new study's findings. "No figures that are produced are reliable at this stage," a spokesman said.
The report was compiled by a team led by Les Roberts, a public health expert from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore in the US.
They surveyed households in 33 regions of the country. They then compared civilian mortality rates before and after the invasion.
Independent statisticians who have analysed the data said yesterday that the scientists' methodology was stron
g, and the civilian death count could well be conservative.
They said the work effectively rubbished suggestions by U
S authorities that civilian bodycounts were impossible to conduct. In coming to a total of 100,000 civilian deaths, the team excluded Fallujah, where two-thirds of violent deaths recorded had occurred.
Experts said that including this area, where collecting data remains highly dangerous, would push the number of civilian deaths much higher.
Dr Roberts said yesterday that the death toll from bombing suggested a pressing need to alter air strike strategies.
"We can say with absolute confidence that both mortality and violent deaths have gone way up," he said. "Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess deaths or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths, and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths."
Overall, the risk of death w
as found to be 2.5 times greater after the invasion. The risk was 1.5 times higher if mortality around the hotspot of Falluja was excluded.
The survey's
publication came as Japan's embassy in Baghdad said it was checking a report that the body of an Asian had been found in Iraq, as fears mounted over the fate of a Japanese hostage threatened with death. Japanese news agency Kyodo reported the body had been found in Tikrit, 180km north of Baghdad, but was unable to say whether it was kidnapped Japanese Shosei Koda, 24. Tokyo had rejected demands by the al-Qa'ida-linked insurgents holding Koda that Japan withdraw its 600 soldiers from Iraq by late Thursday, local time.
Skara Brae,
madkins