Almost completely forgotten now is the November, 2002 estimate by Medact, the British affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, that an invasion of Iraq and subsequent civil war “could cause half a million deaths.”
And rightfully so, since subsequent events have completely discredited them. This is from a British polling company working in Iraq:
In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent ‘surge’ is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003.
Previous estimates, most noticeably the one published in the Lancet in October 2006, suggested almost half this number (654,965 deaths).
These findings come from a poll released today by O.R.B., the British polling agency that have been tracking public opinion in Iraq since 2005. In conjunction with their Iraqi fieldwork agency a representative sample of 1,461 adults aged 18+ answered the following question:-
Q How many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age)? Please note that I mean those who were actually living under your roof.
None 78%
One 16%
Two 5%
Three 1%
Four or more 0.002%Given that from the 2005 census there are a total of 4,050,597 households this data suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths since the invasion in 2003.
The Los Angeles Times writes about it here. Note the results are in line with Just Foreign Policy’s attempt to extrapolate from the second Lancet study.
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