COVER STORY
Data Bomb
Cover Image
Also In This Issue
Counting Corpses
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Unscientific Methods?
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Hidden Patterns
Related Resources On National Journal.com
National Journal: "Iraq's Slippery Polls" (12/01/07)
Additional Resources On The Web
Risk Factor Study [PDF]
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Households In Conflict Presentation [PDF]
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Iraq Data Collection From [PDF]
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Iraq Mortality Survey Questionnaire (actual) [PDF]
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Iraq Mortality Survey Questionnaire (template) [PDF]
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Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Press Release [PDF]
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Iraqi Child Nutritional Status Report (part 1) [PDF]
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Iraqi Child Nutritional Status Report (part 2) [PDF]
By Neil Munro and Carl M. Cannon, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Jan. 4, 2008
Three weeks before the 2006 midterm elections gave Democrats control of Congress, a shocking study reported on the number of Iraqis who had died in the ongoing war. It bolstered criticism of President Bush and heightened the waves of dread -- here and around the world -- about the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Published by The Lancet, a venerable British medical journal, the study [PDF] used previously accepted methods for calculating death rates to estimate the number of "excess" Iraqi deaths after the 2003 invasion at 426,369 to 793,663; the study said the most likely figure was near the middle of that range: 654,965. Almost 92 percent of the dead, the study asserted, were killed by bullets, bombs, or U.S. air strikes. This stunning toll was more than 10 times the number of deaths estimated by the Iraqi or U.S. governments, or by any human-rights group.
In December 2005, Bush had used a figure of 30,000 civilian deaths in Iraq. Iraq's health ministry calculated that, based on death certificates, 50,000 Iraqis had died in the war through June 2006. A cautiously compiled database of media reports by a London-based anti-war group called Iraq Body Count confirmed at least 45,000 war dead during the same time period. These were all horrific numbers -- but the death count in The Lancet's study differed by an order of magnitude.
Queried in the Rose Garden on October 11, the day the Lancet article came out, Bush dismissed it. "I don't consider it a credible report," he replied. The Pentagon and top British government officials also rejected the study's findings.
Such skepticism would not prove to be the rule.
CBS News called the report a "new and stunning measure of the havoc the American invasion unleashed in Iraq." CNN began its report this way: "War has wiped out about 655,000 Iraqis, or more than 500 people a day, since the U.S.-led invasion, a new study reports." Within a week, the study had been featured in 25 news shows and 188 articles in U.S. newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.
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