Iraqi official estimates at least 150,000 Iraqis killed by insurgents

[ECH1969]

About 150,000 Iraqis have been killed by insurgents since the U.S.-led invasion more than three years ago, a senior Iraqi official said Thursday.

For every person killed about three have been wounded in violence since the war started in March 2003, Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari told reporters in Vienna.

In October, the British medical journal The Lancet published a controversial study contending nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war, a far higher death toll than other estimates. The study, which was dismissed by President Bush and other U.S. officials as not credible, was based on interviews of households and not a body count.

Al-Shemari disputed that figure on Thursday. ``Since three and a half years, since the change of the Saddam regime, some people say we have 600,000 are killed. This is an exaggerated number. I think 150 is OK,'' he said.

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