Death in Iraq: Day 1,300

Six hundred thousand Iraqis died violently in the 40 months after the American invasion of March 2003, approximately 2.5% of the country's total population. This shockingly high estimate, much higher than any previous estimate, is based on a thorough, statistically rigorous "cluster sample" of 1,849 households scattered around Iraq, and it measures only those deaths that would not have occurred in peacetime. The complete study, conducted by Iraqi doctors this summer under the auspices of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, will be published in the British medical journal The Lancet on October 14. (Correction, 10/11: the study has now been published. This post is based principally on Neil King's report in the Wall Street Journal, via Brad DeLong.)

The 600,000 figure contrasts with George Bush's unscientific estimate last December that 30,000 had died (in 33 months) and also with the earlier Lancet study of November 2004 that 100,000 had died (in just 18 months). The Iraqi doctors collected information for the new survey over the 12 months before the invasion as well as the 40 months since, and they saw death certificates for 92% of reported deaths.

For statistical purposes, the sample size is very large, much larger (for example) than typical national voter polls in the US, which sample about 1,000 to 1,200 individual respondents. (Update, 10/11) The sample size for this study is 12,801 persons—in a country one-twelfth the population of the US. The data-gathering and estimation techniques are quite reliable; according to one of the lead researchers, Gilbert Burnham of Johns Hopkins, "This is a standard methodology that the U.S. government and others have encouraged groups to use in developing countries."

To put the 2.5% figure in perspective, 600,000 dead Iraqis is equivalent to 7.5 million dead Americans. That is very close to the total population of New York City (8 million). It is as though the 3,000 who died on 9/11/2001, killed spectacularly on that day by non-Iraqi terrorists, were but the beginning of a continuous slaughter of nearly every person in the city—picked off one by one and fifty by fifty—by snipers, IEDs, bombs, and all-out attacks over an excruciating three and a half years. Imagine such a horror, and you will have some inkling of what it is to live in Iraq today.

The US-led coalition forces were directly involved in 31% of the deaths, according to the survey. In response, Lt Col Mark Ballesteros, a Defense Department spokesman, protested that "the coalition takes enormous precautions to prevent civilian deaths and injuries." It is not surprising that the majority of Americans no longer trust their government.

The other 69%, of course, would not have occurred if the US had not invaded. Saddam Hussein was a ruthless dictator: over the course of 20 years, he killed perhaps as many as 290,000 people, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate—that's a rate of 1,200 deaths a month. The US invasion and consequent civil war have killed twice as many people in a much shorter period of time, at a rate of 15,000 deaths a month. It is not surprising that the majority of Iraqis want the American forces to leave.

Read the Journal article here, and read the complete Lancet study here.

As of today, these are the numbers of the dead:

• about 600,000 Iraqis
• 2,751 American military personnel
• 237 other coalition military personnel
• at least 355 coalition contractors
• at least 100 journalists

And in Afghanistan too, the carnage continues: 341 American soldiers, 150 other coalition soldiers, and uncounted thousands—perhaps tens of thousands—of Afghans have died.

Comments

[Dan]

Nice entry. In fact, I'm not sure 4 persons per household is a good estimate for Iraq - I believe aid agencies working there use an estimate of 6 per household.

[Robert Silvey]

Thanks, Dan. I had conservatively estimated 4 per household, since I didn't have good data. I've changed it to 6.

Your site, Irananalysis.org is excellent, with a wealth of information and links. Very useful. Thanks.

[Robert Silvey]

Update: Now that the study itself has been published, I learned that the average household size was almost 7, and I corrected the post.