How many Iraqis have been killed as a result of the Iraq war? The medical journal Lancet reported in November 2006 that the death toll had reached an estimated 655,000. [1]
However, some journalists appear to insist that the figure is actually nearer 100,000. Here are a couple of recent examples:
‘(Blair) also compared the estimated 112,000 Iraqis killed in the war to the unknown number of civilians who might have died of malnutrition and ethnic cleansing under Saddam Hussein.’ [2]
‘Some 100,000 civilians are estimated to have lost their lives from occupation-related violence.’ [3]
Some journalists, presumably with the Lancet figure in mind, refer to a 600,000 figure, despite almost four years of war having happened since the Lancet estimate:
’More than 4,000 Americans died in the fighting while up to 600,000 civilians were killed.’ [4]
’Mr Obama said it was ‘time to turn the page’ on the (Iraq) war which has killed more than 4,700 coalition soldiers and at least 600,000 civilians.’ [5]
Note from the links below that I have taken examples from The Guardian and The Metro and that journalists writing for the same paper differ in their figures by approximately 500,000. So what? Well, let’s imagine that England had been attacked by another country and 600,000 people had been killed. Would it be appreciated if Iraqi newspapers were saying that 100,000 people had been killed? Silly question. Is the use of, what I suspect is the Iraqi Body Count figure, down to laziness or deliberate minimisation of western crimes? Without speaking to the journalists, who knows.
As I said, it’s almost four years since the Lancet estimate, and more Iraqi people have definitely died since then, so perhaps Robert Fisk is nearer the mark:
‘ Up to a million Iraqis are dead.’ [6]
And he continues: ‘Blair cares nothing about them – they do not feature, please note, in his royalties generosity. And nor do most of the American soldiers. They came. They saw. They lost. And now they say they’ve won. How the Arabs, surviving on six hours of electricity a day in their bleak country, must be hoping for no more victories like this one.’
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/oct/11/iraq.iraq
[2] http://www.metro.co.uk/news/839632-tony-blair-i-never-imagined-horrors-of-war-in-iraq, John Higginson, 1/9/10
[3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/31/trillion-dollar-catastrophe-iraq-war, Simon Jenkins, 1/9/10
[4] http://www.metro.co.uk/news/839623-usa-declares-iraq-a-free-country-as-it-withdraws-last-combat-troops, Tariq Tahir, 1/9/10
[5] (From ‘Obama: It is time to turn page on Iraq, Joel Taylor, Metro, 2/9/20)
[6] http://stopwar.org.uk/content/view/2041/1/, Robert Fisk, The Independent, 20/8/10
PS. Just to add that Tariq Tahir started his article with ‘The last US combat troops have left Iraq – seven-and-a-half years after they led the invasion to topple dictator Saddam Hussein.’ Er, no. The invasion was about imaginary WMD and Tahir must surely remember this.
Er, what about IFHS (151,000) and the more recent peer-reviewed research critical of Lancet 2006 & ORB? You don’t get to pick and choose if you want to be scientific about it – you consider all the research, not just the subset that confirms your views. For an update on the research, see the references at the end of this article: http://www.thecommentfactory.com/why-is-the-chilcot-iraq-inquiry-ignoring-the-spilt-blood-3490/