An authoritative new study of civilian casualties in the Iraq War shows that opponents of that conflict have wildly and consistently exaggerated its human costs.
Based on previously secret figures from the Iraqi Health Ministry, as well as numbers from the British Group “Iraq Body Count” and its own investigation of hospital records and death certificates, the Associated Press concluded that 110,600 Iraqis died since the beginning of the American Invasion. This contrasts with irresponsible and unscientific estimates from various sources that often put the casualties as ten times that high.
For instance, the best known previous estimate of Iraqi deaths came from a notoriously unreliable “household survey” conducted by investigators from Johns Hopkins University and published in the British medical Journal, “The Lancet”. It concluded that 601,027 Iraqis had perished by July, 2006. An even less credible survey, by the British marketing research company, Opinion Research Business, concluded that more than a million Iraqis had died (of a total population of 29 million) by August, 2007.
The new Associated Press report used previously undisclosed data from the Health Ministry, supplementing this total (87,215) with deaths reported from other sources. As reporter Kim Gamel explained: “The AP reviewed the Iraq Body Count analysis and confirmed its conclusions by sifting the data and consulting experts. The AP also interviewed experts involved with the previous studies, prominent Iraq analysts, and provincial and medical officials to determine that the new tally was credible.”
All this careful work yielded far more persuasive numbers than the hysterical reports always favored by the anti-war movement and deployed as part of its effort to depict the war as one of the great genocides of human history.
But while the Associated Press deserves credit for its honest and responsible work, their account of the new totals still failed to place the figures in any meaningful perspective. For instance, the analysis failed to note that the overwhelming majority of the 110,600 dead met their demise at the hands of terrorist violence or sectarian strife; only a tiny minority (perhaps 10% or less) of all casualties occurred at the hands of the Americans or other coalition forces. The AP account does take note of the fact that the Health Ministry figures show that 59,957 of their reported 87,215 deaths (or more than two thirds) occurred in 2006 and 2007 “when sectarian attacks soared and death squads roamed the streets. The period was marked by catastrophic bombings and execution style killings.” The story might have added that the Americans perpetrated none of these mass killings, and instead fought heroically to bring them to an end.
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