With reliable data...able to lessen the tragic human cost of future wars."

[dajoki]

posted October 12, 2006 at 12:40 p.m.
US, Britain reject study that claims Iraqi death toll tops 600,000
But some experts support results, which were extrapolated from interviews with Iraqi families.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1012/dailyUpdate.html


The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and the Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, in cooperation with Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have released a study that says more than 655,000 Iraqis have died in Iraq following the US-led invasion of that country.

The Guardian reports that authors of the study say that nearly 31 percent of the deaths were caused by coalition troops, while most of the remaining fatalities were caused by violence such as gunshot wounds (56 percent) and car bombs.

"Although such death rates might be common in times of war," write the authors, Professor Gilbert Burnham and colleagues, "the combination of a long duration and tens of millions of people affected has made this the deadliest international conflict of the 21st century and should be of grave concern to everyone.

"At the conclusion of our 2004 study we urged that an independent body assess the excess mortality that we saw in Iraq. This has not happened.

"We continue to believe that an independent international body to monitor compliance with the Geneva conventions and other humanitarian standards in conflict is urgently needed. With reliable data, those voices that speak out for civilians trapped in conflict might be able to lessen the tragic human cost of future wars."