So you were wondering about the Iraqi casualties...

When the Iraq war began, I read that the US military is prohibited from gathering information related to Iraqi casuaties. The US military has well developed methods and statistical models for calculating casualties. However, that sort of information is difficult to keep secret. Gathering no data would be the only way to ensure that no Iraqi casualty data could be leaked.

Still, I wondered how Iraqi military and civilian casualty counts compared to US and coalition counts. Recently, I read a news article about a study published by the Lancet, a UK medical journal, regarding the Lancet's report that "Making conservative assumptions we think that about 100,000 excess deaths, or more, have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq."

excerpts from the article
Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most of the violent deaths." Violent deaths were mainly attributed to coalition forces - and most individuals reportedly killed were women and children.

Violent deaths were mainly attributed to coalition forces - and most individuals reportedly killed were women and children.

Dr Les Roberts, who led the study, said: "Making conservative assumptions we think that about 100,000 excess deaths, or more, have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The Lancet published research by scientists from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US city of Baltimore.

They gathered data on births and deaths since January 2002 from 33 clusters of 30 households each across Iraq.

That is the highest estimate that has been made publicly. It's a bit of a shock.