Sewers of Babel : braineel

Post details: What is the Iraqi death toll?

2006-10-11

posted by braineel

19:09:27, Categories: General, Politicks and fleas, 302 words

What is the Iraqi death toll?

iraq death

Johns Hopkins and M.I.T. put out a report that U.S. President George Bush disagrees with. Although the report was based on household interviews, 92% of the families asked questioned in the study were able to produce a death certificate for their loved ones, according to CNN.

The US president, George Bush, tonight admitted "a lot of innocent people" had lost their lives in Iraq but rejected the findings of a controversial report that the civilian death toll in the war-torn country had reached 655,000.

"I don't consider it a credible report," Mr Bush told a White House press conference in response to a study published in the medical journal The Lancet. "Neither does General Casey, neither do Iraqi officials," he added, referring to George Casey, the top US general in Iraq.

The Iraqi government said the report's death toll was "inflated" and "far from the truth", but did not give its own figure for the deaths.

Mr Bush, who last December suggested there may have been 30,000 civilian deaths in Iraq, would not give a figure today for overall fatalities.

The study found that the equivalent of 2.5% of Iraq's population had been killed since fighting began more than three years ago. The study, by the Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, was based on household interviews - not a body count - and was a follow-up to a report by the same group two years ago.

According to the site iraqbodycount the number dead in Iraq is closer to:

Civilians reported killed by military intervention in Iraq 43,850 to 48,693

Gen. George W. Casey argues with the number as well.

"That 650,000 number seems way, way beyond any number that I have seen," Casey said. "I've not seen a number higher than 50,000. And so I don't give it that much credibility at all."

2 comments

Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: mannalive [Member]

yeah! i was gonna post this too.

2006-10-12 @ 12:21

Comment from: kerinth [Member]

Somewhere lost in this mix is the fact that either one of the estimates constitutes major citizen collateral damage i.e. somewhat inadvertent genocide.

2006-10-12 @ 21:30

You must be logged in to add a comment.

SEWERS OF BABEL
MAIN PAGE

Babel On! forums

EXTERIOR LINKS

CONTRIBUTOR'S PROJECTS

FRIENDS OF THE SEWERS

MISC TOUCHSTONES

Post details: What is the Iraqi death toll?

2006-10-11

What is the Iraqi death toll?

Comments, Pingbacks: