Iraq War Body Count again

The study from October 2006 by the British medical journal The Lancet stirred up a huge amount of controversy.

It was dismissed out of hand by the Bush Administration (of course!), and bashed by many political commentators in the MSM as well. Fortunately other researchers came to the defense of the study, supporting claims that the methodology was sound.

If the numbers are correct, and we may never know, they are truly appalling:

"We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654,965 excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2·5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601,027 ... were due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire."

To put this in perspective:

If you accept the 2.5% estimate, imagine that a similar portion of US citizens were killed. There were roughly 300 million (300,000,000) people in the US in 2006. If you multiply those numbers you get

7,500,000

as the US equivalent of that excess death calculation. 7.5 million people. It's almost beyond comprehension.

Try to imagine our country suffering such losses under any circumstances, much less under false pretenses.

link to study abstract (free registration required)