CNN: Study: War blamed for 655,000 Iraqi death [via Scripting News]
War has wiped out about 655,000 Iraqis or more than 500 people a day since the U.S.-led invasion, a new study reports.
…President Bush slammed the report Wednesday during a news conference in the White House Rose Garden. “I don’t consider it a credible report. Neither does Gen. (George) Casey,” he said, referring to the top ranking U.S. military official in Iraq, “and neither do Iraqi officials.”
“The methodology is pretty well discredited,” he added.
No mention by Bush of why the methodology is discredited. Later:
Last December, Bush said that he estimated about 30,000 people had died since the war began.
…The authors said their method of sampling the population is a “standard tool of epidemiology and is used by the U.S. government and many other agencies.”
Professionals familiar with such research told CNN that the survey’s methodology is sound.
Doesn’t matter which way you cut it – Bush’s accepted figure of 30,000, Iraq Body Count’s figure of between 43,850 nd 48,693 (which relies solely on media-reported deaths), or 655,000 in the new study – Iraqi’s have suffered a huge loss of life. America launched this attack supposedly in response to the loss of life on 11 Sept 2001 – around 3,000 people. At least 10 times that loss of life in Iraq. At least…
What bugs me most about Bush’s statement is that the US military have explicitly stated that they do not track deaths of Iraqis – so how on earth they can support the 30,000 figure I do not know.