Reply #11: I don't trust the number 300,000, here's why ...

[Jim__]

... The article that was cited on DU(here) contains this: On February 8, 2006, Les Roberts (the lead author of the The Lancet's report) said that the number of Iraqi civilian deaths had now risen to 300,000..

Here's an article written by Les Robert's on February 8, 2006.In part it says:

The contrast between the graph showing 400 violent deaths a month in portions of Baghdad served by this morgue, and oft-cited Iraqbodycount estimate of about 500 violent deaths per month in the entire country, could not be more dramatic. The Iraqbodycount estimate is certainly low and the morgue-recorded deaths are probably overestimating the increase in mortality. (The dramatic increase in deadly violence is likely resulting in a larger fraction of decedents bypassing hospitals and having their deaths recorded at morgues.)

It is probable that the level of violence and increase in mortality is overestimated by the Figure 1 and by those in the foreign press who cite such numbers. It is more probable, however, that the estimates of 20,000 to 30,000 civilian deaths cited in the American press are too low, most likely by a factor of five or ten.

Now, if you take the 30,000 and the factor of 10, you arrive at 300,000. But, in the next paragraph the article says:

The casualty count is significant for many reasons. There are, of course, moral considerations. Is the way we wage war now indiscriminate with regard to non-combatants? Is the rhetoric about "precision" in our airborne weaponry masking a darker reality of unnecessary carnage on the ground? Avoidable killing of non-combatants is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions, regardless of the actions of the insurgency. And the possibility that the Coalition forces could be responsible for as many as 200,000 Iraqi civilian deaths or more would likely alter the political mood in the United States with respect to the legitimacy of "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

If this is the actual article that they're citing, I'd take the 200,000 as a possible estimate from Roberts rather than the 300,000.