[NYTr] Civilian Death Toll in Iraq: 151,000 Iraqis killed - WHO

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Reuters - Jan 9, 2008
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL0957661720080109

151,000 Iraqis killed since U.S.-led invasion: WHO

By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA (Reuters) - About 151,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in the
three years following the U.S.-led invasion of their country, according
to World Health Organization (WHO) research published on Wednesday.

The new study, which said violent deaths could have ranged from 104,000
to 223,000 between March 2003 and June 2006, is the most comprehensive
since the war started.

The study drew on an Iraqi health ministry survey of nearly 10,000
households -- five times the number of those interviewed in a disputed
2006 John Hopkins University study that said more than 600,000 Iraqis
had died over the period.

While well below that figure, the United Nations agency's estimate
exceeds the widely-cited 80,000 to 87,000 death toll by the human
rights group Iraq Body Count, which uses media reports and hospital and
morgue records to calculate its tally.

"There are a lot of uncertainties in making such estimates," WHO
statistician Mohamed Ali, who co-authored the study, told reporters on a
conference call.

He said insecurity made parts of Baghdad and Anbar provinces unreachable
for those conducting the survey, which included questions about other
topics including pregnancy and disease.

Many families also fled their homes as a result of the violence, and
some left the country, making it hard to give a precise assessment of
the violence in Iraq. As a result, Ali said the margin of error for the
toll was relatively high.

Still, he said the household survey's large scale gave the findings more
weight than previous attempts to estimate the number of Iraqis killed in
battles between and among military forces, insurgents and sectarian
fighters.

The John Hopkins University report, published by the British medical
journal Lancet, which was based on a smaller-scale Iraqi survey, drew
criticism from the White House and elsewhere for appearing to exaggerate
the Iraqi death rate.

Iraqi Health Minister Saleh al-Hasnawi described the latest WHO report
as "very sound" and said the survey indicated "a massive death toll
since the beginning of the conflict".

"I believe in these numbers," he told the conference call.

More than half of the violent deaths documented in the WHO report
occurred in Baghdad.

An average of 128 Iraqis suffered violent deaths every day in the first
year following the invasion. The next year, an average of 115 were
killed daily and 126 died from violence each day in the third year
after the war started.

Estimates of Iraq's civilian deaths have been hampered by the lack of a
well-functioning death registration system, the WHO said.

Some 3,915 U.S. and 174 British forces have died since the war began.
Between 4,900 and 6,375 Iraqi military personnel are thought to have
died, though no reliable official figures have been issued since new
security forces were set up in late 2003.

Death tolls have fallen in recent months as the number of violent
attacks in Iraq has declined.

(For more information on humanitarian crises and issues visit
www.alertnet.org)

(editing by Jonathan Lynn and Elizabeth Piper)

) Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.