Iraq's health minister says between 100,000 and 150,000 civilians have been killed in the war, far more than other previously accepted figures.

 

 

Officials say the total is based on estimates of the number of bodies brought to mortuaries and hospitals.

 

Casualty figures are a controversial topic, with estimates or counts ranging from 50,000 to 650,000 deaths.

 

No official count has ever been made public. The health ministry is run by supporters of a radical anti-US cleric.

 

Speaking during a visit to Vienna, Health Minister Ali al-Shamari said the figure was based on an estimate of 100 bodies being brought into government run mortuaries and hospitals every day.

 

Study dismissed

 

In October, the UK medical journal The Lancet published a study saying nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the war - a far higher death toll than other estimates.

 

The study was dismissed by President George W Bush and other US officials as not credible. It has based on cluster samples rather than body counts.

 

Previous counts, such as the Iraq Body Count, held that about 50,000 had people had been killed, based on partial figures from Iraqi institutions and media reports.

 

This figure was informally endorsed by senior American and Iraqi officials.

 

The head of the Baghdad central mortuary said on Thursday that he was receiving up to 60 victims of violent death - from insurgent violence and sectarian strife - each day at his facility alone.

 

Separately, the US military says three of its personnel have been killed in two separate incidents in Iraq.

 

Two soldiers were hit on Thursday by a roadside bomb in western Baghdad.

 

In Anbar province - a focal point of Sunni Arab resistance - the Americans say a marine died on Thursday of wounds sustained in fighting.

 

At least 23 US troops have been killed in November. In October, at least 105 soldiers were killed, the fourth highest monthly toll since US forces overthrew Saddam Hussein, and the worst for US casualties in nearly two years.

:confused:

 

And just today like 35 died, when a suicide exploded himself in a line of people in front of Iraqui police recruitment, they wanted to be police and its what exxtremist call traitors.

the "funny" thing that the White House estimated around 50,000 and now it looks like the number's 2 or even 3 times higher if not more.

 

the bad thing that Iraq is in civil war now, and this number will definitely grow...

Yes, they lie, they lie.

And I think most of the time we have no idea of all the atrocities happening there...

Fact remains that that didn't happen under Saddam.

dear god:cry:

I know, but.....

 

By David Brown

The Washington Post

 

Wednesday 11 October 2006

 

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

 

The estimate, produced by interviewing residents during a random sampling of households throughout the country, is far higher than ones produced by other groups, including Iraq's government.

 

It is more than 20 times the estimate of 30,000 civilian deaths that President Bush gave in a speech in December. It is more than 10 times the estimate of roughly 50,000 civilian deaths made by the British-based Iraq Body Count research group.

 

The surveyors said they found a steady increase in mortality since the invasion, with a steeper rise in the last year that appears to reflect a worsening of violence as reported by the U.S. military, the news media and civilian groups. In the year ending in June, the team calculated Iraq's mortality rate to be roughly four times what it was the year before the war.

 

Of the total 655,000 estimated "excess deaths," 601,000 resulted from violence and the rest from disease and other causes, according to the study. This is about 500 unexpected violent deaths per day throughout the country.

 

The survey was done by Iraqi physicians and overseen by epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. The findings are being published online today by the British medical journal the Lancet.

 

While acknowledging that the estimate is large, the researchers believe it is sound for numerous reasons. The recent survey got the same estimate for immediate post-invasion deaths as the early survey, which gives the researchers confidence in the methods. The great majority of deaths were also substantiated by death certificates.

 

"We're very confident with the results," said Gilbert Burnham, a Johns Hopkins physician and epidemiologist.

 

Both this and the earlier study are the only ones to estimate mortality in Iraq using scientific methods. The technique, called "cluster sampling," is used to estimate mortality in famines and after natural disasters.

 

"The Department of Defense always regrets the loss of any innocent life in Iraq or anywhere else," said Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros. "The coalition takes enormous precautions to prevent civilian deaths and injuries."

 

The interviewers asked for death certificates 87 percent of the time; when they did, more than 90 percent of households produced certificates.

*likes how everyone points fingers at US and forgets to ask whats actually going on*

*likes how everyone points fingers at US and forgets to ask whats actually going on*

 

yes, there is a civil war in Iraq. but US is part of it, too...well, kind of

Well its the shiites and sunnii that have done most of the killing and yet everyone blames the US everytime theres a car bomb or something.

 

And remember Saddam was responsilbe for over a million deaths and alot more suffering.

Well its the shiites and sunnii that have done most of the killing and yet everyone blames the US everytime theres a car bomb or something.

 

And remember Saddam was responsilbe for over a million deaths and alot more suffering.

 

i don't think everyone blames the US in those cases :rolleyes:

 

i don't know exactly, only think but probably the tension has grown after US' invasion in Iraq

 

can't argue on Saddam thought

*likes how everyone points fingers at US and forgets to ask whats actually going on*

 

Mother, mother, there's too many of you crying

Brother, brother, brother, there's far too many of you dying

You know we've got to find a way

To bring some lovin' here today...

 

Father, father, we don't need to escalate

War is not the answer, for only love can conquer hate

You know we've got to find a way

To bring some lovin' here today...

 

Picket lines and picket signs

Don't punish me with brutality

Talk to me, so you can see....

What's going on

 

 

 

Haha, sounds a bit hippy now....but....fuck it.