Man I like this kill ratio. For every person who died in the 9/11 attacks by Saudi Arabia extremists intent on showing their discontent with U.S. support of the Saudi regime, the Bush administration has already killed over 220 Iraqis. That will teach the Saudis not to mess with us.

First Lady Laura Bush seems concerned about her husbands legacy. Honey, let me tell you something, he may have missed the target, but your boy will never be forgetten, I can assure you that. With a kill ratio like that and the U.S. economy in ruins, I am pretty sure he will go down in history. You must be proud of him. I just hope the thought of all those dead men, women and children do not haunt your dreams at night. I just hope when you look at your hubby you don’t start to see a mass murderer because we all know and appreciate the importance of cheap oil (not to mention oil profits). He’s my hero lady, I can assure you of that. I thank God every day for sending us such a strong leader.

Ah, but this isn’t over quite yet. Senator McCain wants to try to do better. Man if he tops 1,000,000 Iraqi deaths for every American the Saudi terrorists killed, that will be a kill ration of 336-to-1. Now that’s got to be some kind of record. Doesn’t it just make you beam with pride to be the leaders of the free world? We got the best damn kill ratios in history.

Mariam, you are exactly right that the body count of dead Iraqi’s means nothing to this administration and they use these things to deny just to waste time and news space, but they also are hoping that it will soon die and all will forget the horrors of the numbers.
Lets keep it alive by posting it in a forum everyday.
It also reminds us of who the real terrorists are!
These people (neo-cons) are the biggest hypocrites. We are daily killing or causing the death of so many children around the world, while we are trying to save american fetuses.
What a skewered picture!
Boggs

DON´T YOU FOLKS RECOGNIZE THE ROVE SPIN MASTERS IN ALL THIS? THE FACT IS THESE PEOPLE DO NOT CARE, 600,000 OR 6,000,000 IS ALL THE SAME TO THEM, BUT THEY KNOW ENOUGH NOT TO SAY THAT TO US DO THEY SPIN AND OBFUSCATE TILL ANOTHER STORY COMES ALONG TO TAKE THE ATTENTION OFF THIS ONE.THEY DO NOT BELIEVE WHAT THEY ARE SAYING SO WHY SPEND SO MUCH EMOTION ON TRYING TO PROVE THEM WRONG??????

Strange that after Bush/ Bremer/ Military ordered that Iraqi deaths not be counted they now insist the count is wrong.

Based upon lies and manipulated information, we engaged in a pre-emptive war against Iraq. It is an unjust and illegal war and because of that, there will be no victory this week, next month, next year, or ever.  There is no justification for what we have done to the citizens of Iraq, or to their country.  Whether we have killed one or one million Iraqis, the shame of our actions is the same.  The challenge our country faces, is to “own the mistake”. We can begin by ending the efforts to make excuses for our actions. (i.e. weapons of mass destruction, getting rid of a cruel dictator, etc.) The second challenge our country faces is to declare once and for all, that never again will we send our children to the killing fields based upon lies.  I have lived through two wars in our country’s history, the Vietnam and Iraq, in which our children were sent to the killing fields based upon lies. Being patriotic means loving this country and its people.  It means that we must be diligent in protecting our country from both the enemies without and those within.  Our enemies within are hate and division.  There are those currently in power, for whom hate and division works to keep them in power.  They have Americans confused and divided.  They also have the minds of many Americans numbed with their unrelenting use of fear. We gave them permission to do this.  It is time for us to listen to ourself, and to stop permitting the use of fear, hate and division to tear apart our country. We must take the time to know about the people we elect to office and the money behind those people.  We owe an apology to the world and to ourselves, for our actions.  America has fallen down.  Now it is time to get up and go forward as a better, stronger and wiser country.

Freedom is never free, without war would come no peace or freedom. Are we truely at peace, or free...No, But what we have built in America is better than any other cuntry. We have our freedom to do whatever we want that our peers, and our society deems fit to be right. We are always trying to protect our own lives and keep our own peace. Does anyone honestly believe these third world nations wouldn’t try to use our own technology against us. Thank God Einstein seen Germany as the evil tyrany they were otherwise we would all have little mustaches and be slaves to our country. We have only divided as our nation has grown larger with more people from around the world living here who’s openion shouldn’t count anyways, as they are changing our ways and our beliefs. Our country will never stand as it once was set forth by our four fathers, but with the dangers in the world today let’s keep our faith in our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, friends and family that run our government, and elect our politicians.

Your doctor is a dope.
655,000 for 36 months = 18,000 per month or 586 per day.  That is not being observed at the morgue.  Where are the bodies Doctor?

It’s called WAR, idiot. People die. And with the numbers you post, that’s called VICTORY!

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.
- Robert M. Hutchins

Perhaps more fascinating in it’s absence than in it’s presence, I’m captivated by the sheer lack of interest by our fellow truthdiggers on this, an historic and terrible topic.  Pat Tillman, his brother’s birthday wishes laid out there for all the world to see, rakes in comments like no other article before; some 1600 respondents over the course of a weekend.
Meanwhile, a scientifically derived study that lays out the data on Iraqi murdered during wartime by some of the brightest statisticians this world has known , and a scant 22, count them with 5 hands…have braved the online blogging universe to discuss their point publicly.

Apathy, like a narcotic sweet and alluring, has put America to sleep, though she’s a furious and unleashed god of destruction.  Lulled into televised self-helplessness, details such as these are better ignored.  For to understand these data is to discover one’s arms soaked in blood, one’s finger blistered over, with the repetitive launching of surgically precise missiles whose military capability are busy laying waste to square city blocks at a time.  Murder to this degree is not bearable to the collective unconscious of an America in denial.  Murder of this magnitude is best ignored.  It’s worked in Darfur, once, it will work again.  We don’t need to be reminded of how we hate, so silently, pensive only when a measure of injustice has been exacted that’s quantifiable…one all star quarterback dead, now we can deal with that.  And that his brother should have remained quiet all these years seems to smack of irony.  Suddenly, rage is brought fourth.  Suddenly, the silence is broken.

Ours is a world in which we witness events on TV, and call it a night.  We’ve no brain matter on the wall to clean up, no funeral for our 3 year old toddler to attend to…no community of departed friends, uncles, sisters, sons etc. to make “Missing” posters for.  We listen, and learn that a bakery was the target of a car bombing today…our focus shifts…until we learn that it was in Baghdad. Then all of those deaths go into the “nothing I can do about it bin,” and we’re off to grab a beer and watch the World Series.  Cardinals look pretty good this year.  How many of those kids killed today never got a chance to meet their children, or grow old, and laugh in the summer sun while their family looks on?  All of them.  Our world is in dire need of your help.  Put away the remote control. Throw out the batteries.  Unplug the TV.  Fire up your word processor and begin a litany of correspondence with your elected officials, demanding accountability for each and every death, American, Iraqi, Afghani, and all others.  We’ve been asleep too long, and the time has come to raise ourselves from the dead.  The world can’t wait.

http://www.house.gov/writerep/

I can’t believe someone compared Bush to Lincoln. Lincoln was trying to keep our nation from splitting apart. Bush is succeding in tearing our nation apart. I remember an interview about two years ago by a reporter in Pakistan. He was interviewing a Pakistani and he asked, What do you think of Osama Bin Laden?  He answered with this question? What do you think of Abraham Lincoln? When the Bush administration and its followers, shed their ignorance and arrogance and see that not everyone wants to be like us then maybe our soldiers will return home. I guess the war profiteers like Halliburton haven’t made enough profit off the blood of our soldiers.

In response to Msg # 29395 by Richard Gilbert. You say that OUR president has never told us why we are in Iraq. Are you and have you been vacationing on some desolute island for the last 5 years with no access to any news (print or otherwise)? OUR president has said numerous times that we went there to get Saddam and his brutal regime out of power for multiple reasons. First and foremost is because of the fact that the countries Wonderful Leader had kicked out Hans and his people against the order of the United Nations. Why did he do this? Probably because they were getting alot closer than Saddam wanted them to. 2nd, he had been such a terrific leader for the past 30 years that he has had more people killed or imprisoned because they didnt believe the same as him. Hmmm, free speech, isn’t it a wonderful thing that we have here? Allowing us to say whatever we want whether its true or not, and not worry about being killed or put in prison? Do you honestly believe that that 600,000 number is true, and if so, how many of those were killed by insurgents, who dont want peace or liberties? If that is how you would like to live then go check it out and see which you would prefer. My guess is probably what you have now.

600,000? Why not 6 million, or 60 million?

I guess because that would be stupid, and only stupid people would believe it.

“If the administration believes the Hopkins study to be flawed, the federal government should fund its own study of Iraqi mortality and submit the methodology and results to a medical journal subject to independent peer review. After all, the Hopkins study was funded in large part by a $50,000 grant from MIT; surely the federal government could afford such a study.”

Yes! Fantastic comment. But you know, they’ll outsource such a task to KBR/Halliburton, have multi-six-figure salaried employees needing to be trained by our super-troopers (as if they didn’t have enough to do) to learn how to add numbers, and the total cost will be more like a billion dollars to do the same study, and with flawed results. But you know, private enterprise is always more efficient, right? That’s because of “competition.” Oh wait, they never compete for contracts in Iraq? Ok, never mind.

Seriously though, this is the guy who brought us the “healthy forests” and “clear skies” initiatives. This was when his credibility with me was totally demolished, and that was long before 9/11. I haven’t believed a word he has said in the past 5.5 years. It is good to see other people finally catching on to this basic fact. I’m also a scientist, and very outspoken in politics in my personal life, but never claim that I speak for “science” in general. To see another good study trashed, once again, for ideological reasons begins to gnaw on one’s nerves, I quite agree.

What’s next with this particular case? I think an even simpler answer (and very cheap too) is to send it along to the National Academy, for yet another expert appraisal. And let them speak truth to power. They’ve been doing it with global warming more and more, and I doubt they’d sugar-coat something like this. A Democratic congressional house could request something like that…

I knew we were killing many Iraqi’s when we were doing the original “Shock and Awe” Rummies famous
war strategy, where we used mostly “Smart Bombs”.
I saw too many Iraqi young men out picking up the bits of flesh and the body parts, to think that we were killing minimal numbers of civilians.
I don’t believe human life means anything to this administration, if its weighed against power and profits, the latter wins everytime.
Bush gives us a big arguement for abortion. His mother failed the country badly when she gave birth to this dysfunctional misfit.

Some of the things being said about President Bush sound very close to opinions of the day about Abraham Lincoln.  Doing the right thing is not always popular.  The war in Iraq isn’t going according to planned, but should not be viewed as Bush wanting to kill non-poor, non-white people, like one of the comments states in this website.  President Bush is doing all he can to protect our freedom and to stop terrorism.  When and if a democrat wins the next presidency, I will pull for him or her with all my heart.  Some of you pussies that say ‘hooray for my side’ are just Bush haters.  I suggest you check which side your on, and realize that the real enemy lives within our own borders......this would be far left libs, you know who you are.

Wake up America!

Terrance T.
American in Detroit

Christopher Hitchens is busy blowing blood vessels trying to deny this story too. I guess he has to try and find some reason for supporting this disaster.

After doctors in Iraq released numbers of dead - close to 4000 in June and July - Maliki contacted them and told them to stop. I don’t know whether he was afraid of losing his job or his backing, but he deliberately had the numbers suppressed. I’m sure the powers-that-be knew them but they were never generally released. The Lancet had to be the one to do it.

And what’s awful is that the 655,000 is only the median. The toll could be as high as 900,000.

Well, it’s hardly news that hacks are engaged in propagandizing. What else is new? It’s been two or three years since a previous study showed that 100,000 had been killed by that time. There was also Robert Fisk’s reportage on likely casualties based on visits to the morgue in Baghdad. (Can’t recall whether or not that study was by same authors.) The figure was completely plausible for anyone observing from the first night of “Shock & Awe,” a moniker that was then, and which remains, an extreme obscenity, akin to Albright’s statement that half a million Iraqi dead were “worth the price” of sanctions, perpetuated by President Good Ole Boy, and such that the Treaty of Versailles appears an act of charity in retrospect. Not forgetting that Daddy Bush, after promising Shiite factions U.S. support in the event (April 1991) they undertook to rid themselves of Saddam, Hussein proceeded to put down that uprising by slaughtering thousands. Kindred souls it seems: Bushes and Hussein, all three obsessed with the wielding of power by any means. (Now, in Bush’s case, by means of the suspension of Habeas Corpus. Olbermann’s commentary this evening addressed the “minor” matter of Habeas Corpus suspended--by law in collusion with the Legislative Branch--about as directly as a guy in mainstream media ever could. Kudos to Keith for his courage in speaking truth to those bent on mastery by reducing most of us to slaves cowering in fear--of anything and everything.)

Even so, I’d guessed “only” 200,000 to 300,000 by now, and so the figure--from 399,000 to 655,000--is indeed that much more horrific. I believe it was Les Roberts I saw on Goodman’s “Democracy Now.” On that program, he went into detail regarding statistical method employed. Only ass-kissing flunkies would pretend to a problem with method. Roberts appears every bit a man of science, devoid of any bias, interested only in establishing facts.

The range of number of Iraqis slaughtered stands to reason upon reflection, given four years of war ON them, mostly ON innocent civilians by forces of the “coalition of the billing” and then by so-called “insurgents,” who, lest anyone missed it, have offered to negotiate. Of all the foul lies told by members of the Bush regime, the most foul told has been that by the little fella himself: 30,000 Iraqi dead. That claim is just about akin to the claim the Holocaust didn’t happen. So what now of their position on the war as maintained by a handful of the actually intelligent among the so-called intelligentsia? By those who should have known better? Does Hitchens (foremost logician in support of the war) still believe, as did Albright re sanctions, that the “price is worth it?” Or has he and those of a mind come to their senses--to the realization that the only possible future is yet more thousands murdered, while there is absolutely ZERO (NADA, ZIP) possibility of “winning”? As though “winning” were ever more than the delusion of complete fools, however “reasonably” cleverly they presented their case.

All of the deaths, be they 30 thousand or a million, are on this President’s head, and if you believe in such things, his soul. I don’t, but it’s men like him that make me hope that I am wrong, and that there is a heaven and hell, because if there is this deeply evil man will spend eternity attending to the devil’s rectal fissures (polishing, cleaning, tending to in whatever fashion his father wishes). This man is the spawn of satan if there ever was one...and that says more about his father than it does about him. And if you want to go even further, look to the example his grandfather Prescott Bush set war profiteering as banker to the Nazi’s. The US media may be brain-dead now, but they have been since most if not all of the readers of this site have been alive...because it was this same US media that allowed Prescott Bush to become a US Senator in 1951...less than ten years after he and his business partners (in Oct. 1942) had their companies and holdings seized by the US government for violating the Trading with the Enemy Act. How does one go from being exposed as a Nazi collaborator to a US Senator in under 10 years? By owning and operating the US media, that’s how...and the beat goes on.

Sorry...I went off on a tangent. The Lancet Report is on the mark statistically, and it’s range of deaths, from 400,000 to 950,000 is certainly accurate, at least from a statistical point of view. The reality is, the numbers could be considerably higher, just like the first Lancet report on Iraq. But that’s the nature of objective studies of this sort...they do the best they can under difficult circumstances, and they provide the world with at least some feel for the magnitude of the crimes of war and crimes against humanity that this criminal administration is guilty of. Politicians continue to refer to the “failed policies” of this administration. Not true, the policies from where they sit are completely successful. You see, when you plan a train robbery, and you get away with it, that’s success, plain and simple. The policies aren’t failures, they are simply criminal activity of the highest order.

The better part of a million dead says it all...and that is why the Liar in Chief continues with his pathological lying, because he knows it’s true, and knows that the only way to keep his ass out of a Nuremburg style trial, is to keep the lies coming 24/7.

Much more to speak of, and much more to do before this blood-soaked cloak of savagery and cold blooded war profiteering ends. It’s gonna be a long hard slog, no matter how it goes. Impeachment is only the first step, then it’s a trial for violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996, which they have just attempted to destroy...but we shall see how it all goes, as long as we have not been tortured to death by the evil minions of the Decider.

Mr.Gilbert, You ask why we invaded Iraq? The real reason.  Some say oil, some say Israel, I say Russia and China. Why? Because our country wants not only them to be democracies but also their resources; oil for example, cheap labor for another.  Why Iraq? It along with Afghanistan puts us within striking position when we deem necessary. It’s our plan to lead the new world order. I hate to sound biblical but they the elitists are doing everything they can to make it come true. We are sitting in the site of the biblical armegeddon between the Tigris and Euphraties rivers. World War 3 is coming soon!

bush is glad of every non white poor person he has killed. he loves it. most bloodthirsty mother fucker you’ve ever seen.
and he loves insulting you by minimizing the numbers. this guy is begging us to kick his little soft spoiled ass like nothing i’ve ever seen. most spoiled baby boomer ever. just put him in prison and take his money and give it to the good people whose life he’s ruined or tried to ruin. that’s humanity’s job right now, and everyone knows it.

Here’s another example of the current administration’s contempt for any science that does not support its pre-established conclusions.  Thank you for this reasoned clarification of the methodology.  The discrepancy between this report, the Iraqi government estimates (100,000, I heard) and Bush’s own (30,000) speaks volumes about the intention to deceive.  Remember those body counts from Vietnam in the late sixties and early seventies?

A conservative rebuttal to the charge that there have been more deaths in Iraq due to the recent invasion than occurred under Saddam’s regime is to conflate the domestic deaths caused by Saddam and those in the Iraq-Iran war.

Iraq’s war against Iran was very unpopular. Many Iraqis died in it.  If those deaths were added to Saddam’s murderous crimes against his own citizens the number of deaths would overwhelm even the 600K figure.

The trouble is, to some extent, the United States is responsible for many of the deaths in that struggle. US policies waxed and waned in the support of the Iraqis and the Iranians. It is believed by some who are familiar with that war’s history that the US encouraged Iraq to keep fighting so that Iran would feel the need to acquire weapons and thereby indirectly fund the Contras.

Also, satellite intelligence was said to have been provided by the US to Iraq so that Iranian troops could be targeted with chemical weapons. Some of the precursors in the manufacturing process of the chemical weapons came from US companies. Of course, the Kurds were the ultimate victims of these chemical weapons.

In the hundred hour long Operation Desert Storm, many Iraqis were buried alive in their trenches. Satellite imagery allowed the US miltary to custom design earth moving attachments for its military vehicles. Trial runs were conducted in trenches constructed by the US military to test the efficacy of this equipment.

Then afterwards the ineffectual sanctions against Iraq began, with the deadly continual aerial bombardment. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died, many of whom were children, because of the sanctions. Saddam and his family living lushly in their palaces flourished under these conditions of deprivation for the general public in Iraq. Turkey and the Kurds made out like bandits in the oil blackmarket that resulted from the sanctions, while the US turned its attention away from the multi-million dollar illicit oil trade.

The deaths in Iraq that have been caused by the US don’t begin with George W’s misadventure. The Iraqis have suffered immeasurably due to the US footprint in the region.

It is tragic that the US, once a beloved neighbour of Canada, founded by men and women of reason, generally not of a religious bent - diesists, athiests, rationalists and so on, could create a rich and wonderful country free from a state religion as well as having freedom of religion, and then have the country turn to religious idiots negating the sound science of the country. And what’s worse, where fundamentalist religious idiots could become not only influential but actually take positions of power as high as advisors to the president, if not the pres himself.

The US does not need enemies to cut the nation to the knees; it is doing quite well on its own.

The state of denial is a psychopathic illness. But before that, when applied to policy effecting the entire population of the earth, it is a willfull blindness, the result of casting aside any emblance of the moral compass.
But then we lost that when America accepted pre-emptive warfare.

As the only scientific analysis conducted using a large data set and sound statical methods, this is surely the most accurate estimate.

The fact that our own war dead are kept from public view in that the Administration does not allow the “free” media to photograph their flag-draped coffins upon return to U.S. soil is disrespectful to their ultimate sacrifice and yet another example of attempts to keep this war’s devastation as quiet as possible.  Those seriously wounded and whose lives are irreparably compromised are paid little media attention as well.  The number of human beings touched by this war is staggering!

This President doesn’t hold any stock in science so trying to sway his beliefs with scientifucally sound research is of no use. 

Whst I find discusting is that the media let him get away with dismissing science as dirty politics.

This report on Iraqi deaths is the second one published by Lancet. The first was a couple of years ago indicating close to 100 thousand deaths and not using the Falluja victims in the data so it was conservative by any measure. I have been arguing with anybody who could not get away fast enough to cover their ears that the use of tens of thousands of deaths in Iraq by the press is false and the real number is hundreds of thousands of deaths (based on the first report). I used to think that those in the mainstream press were victims of a lack of testicular fortitude, now I am beginning to think they are lazy and stupid as well. The press does not demonstrate any knowledge of what the administration has said in the past and bring up past statements when a contradiction is obvious: (Example) Bush’s claim (many times) that the reason we invaded Iraq was that Saddam would not let the inspectors in the country to look for WMD. What the hell was Hans Blix doing there for months before the invasion? The answer is looking for but not finding WMD. I have NEVER heard Bush challenged on that statement, ever!
In fact, what few talk about and I think is a big deal is the “WHY” we invaded Iraq. It is an unanswered question one that will fester like a sore for years to come. Until it is answered the rancor will not settle down. Were the reasons given lies? If so what was the real reason?  Six hundred and fifty thousand Iraqi deaths, three thousand American deaths, hundreds of Billions of dollars, how many hundreds of thousands seriously wounded, a country destroyed, an entire region destabilized because why? I want to know the truth. Watch the news, see who brings up the Lancet report again, see who takes the time to know how to ask the question to the Frat-boy president, that the Lancet published a peer – reviewed report. What study is Bush using to refute the Lancet?

I put a link to this article on my website. When will we wake up to the fact that military solutions cause great death and destruction? I believe that we are contributing toward making the world a more dangerous place in our pursuit of oil and development of our military economy.

The public radio show This American Life did an excellent report on the first Lancet study. Alex Blumberg (relationship acknowledged) gave a particularly clear and lucid explanation of the methodology used in that study, which is the same methodology used in the current study.

Richard

Anyone who is foolish enough to think that prestigious institutions like the Lancet and Johns Hopkins would publish tripe just to make a political point is either plain ignorant or blinded by their right-wing ideology. Believe me, readers, there are plenty of both out there. I belong to an online political forum and the depth of willfull ignorance from the right is appalling.

it is more than wolud be kell but with more bad american forbed a press to arive the the place more action and still kiled press and any one would like do as them

Im glad to have read this article. Thanks for the post! I recently have written a letter to my local paers editor. In this I presented the study. The Doctors article will be a useful resource for any explanations that may become needed.

cheers!