fatalities

(promoted by paradox - too important not to)

Bush discounts new study that reports 655,000 Iraqi civilians have died since 2000 invasion.

As the Bush administration sticks to its estimate of 30,000 civilians killed, a new study released today estimates about 655,000 Iraqis have been killed since the 2003 U.S. led invasion of Iraq. Naturally, in a news conference today, Bush says he doesn't believe the figures are accurate though he realizes, "a lot of innocent people have been killed."

Excerpt from the news story follows:

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad derived that estimate from a door-to-door survey, conducted by doctors, of 1,849 households in Iraq. Taking the number of deaths reported by household residents, they extrapolated to a nationwide figure.

The researchers, reflecting the inherent uncertainties in such extrapolations, said they were 95 percent certain that the real number lay somewhere between 392,979 and 942,636 deaths.

And the pitiful truth is that in the 3-year period before the invasion, not even 1/3 of this number had died in Iraq due to violence. How thankful the Iraqis must feel that we saved them!