Over 1 million Iraqi deaths since 2003

Press TV
Aug. 14, 2007

Nearly one million and a thousand Iraqi civilians have lost their lives since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The figure is at least 10 times greater than most estimates cited in the US media, yet it is based on the only scientifically valid study of violent Iraqi deaths caused by the US-led invasion of March 2003, according to JustForeignPolicy.org.

The estimate is a rough update of a scientific study conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University last year, which concluded that 601,000 violent Iraqi deaths were attributable to the invasion as of July 2006. That study, published in The Lancet, relied on a cross-sectional cluster survey, the method used to estimate deaths around the world following natural and manmade disasters.

Iraqis have continued to be killed ever since.

The website provides a rough daily update of this number based on a rate of increase derived from the Iraq Body Count. The Iraqi death estimator is meant to remind visitors of the awful human costs of continued war.

This devastating human toll rivals the death toll of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The update suggests that the toll has now surpassed even high estimates of deaths in Rwanda.

The website holds American leaders directly responsible and goes on to say "little wonder they do not publicly cite it."

Just Foreign Policy is an independent and non-partisan mass membership organization dedicated to reforming US foreign policy through coordinating the broad majority of Americans to advocate their interests and values.