You hear about how many people were killed on a daily basis in Iraq by the insurgency, but have you ever actually added them all up? Luckily for you, the New York Times has people who’ll do that for you, and the total they’ve come up with is 800 civilians per month have been killed between August, 2004 and May, 2005.
According to the Iraqi Interior Minister, approximately 12,000 Iraqis are not leading better lives since the American occupation — because they’re dead. That’s an approximation. A study last year upped the number of civilian dead to as many as 100,000.
This number doesn’t include deaths caused by American and Iraqi soldiers in military offenses, at checkpoints or on raids. The Bush administration and the Pentagon have deliberately avoided posting body counts, and another online resource puts the numbers between 22,000 and 25,000 civilian dead.
800 a month. 26 every day.
This entry was posted in What a world! What a world!. Bookmark the permalink.
By doinkicarus 15 July 2005 - 5:54 am
with respect to the 100,000 estimate– I have seen that study but I don’t know where it is found. Statistically, it is garbage. The estimate is based on (95 CI 8000,194000)
which means, the researchers are 95% certain that the true number of civilian deaths is somewhere between 8,000 and 194,000. This is an absurdly enormous interval. (this doesn’t mean the number is incorrect, it just means that it’s not a very reliable study.)
By James Huston 15 July 2005 - 9:37 am
Also like to say about that study that is an estimate of people who have died due to effects the war not just people that have died from the war itself. So people dead from malnutrition, disease, murder and other factors are included.
The study is also statistically sound.
Tim Lambert has great work on the Lancet Study here: http://timlambert.org/category/lancetiraq/