Revising the Iraq Body Count

Today Counterpunch published an expanded version of Andrew Cockburn's essay on Iraq war deaths that ran in the LA Times a few weeks ago. The new article contains a good deal of added detail, much of it important and sobering.

Most notably, Cockburn relays a revised estimate of the total war deaths as tabulated by Pierre Sprey, a statistician colleague. Sprey took a closer look at the famed Lancet survey and extrapolated its findings up to today. This is what he concluded, according to Cockburn:

Assuming the rate of death has proceeded at the same pace since the study was carried out, Sprey calculates that deaths inflicted to date as a direct result of the Anglo-American invasion and occupation of Iraq could be, at best estimate, 183,000, with an upper 95 per cent confidence boundary of 511,000.

Given the generally smug and heartless reaction accorded the initial Lancet study, no such updated figure is likely to resonate in public discourse, especially when it registers a dramatic increase. Though the figures quoted by Bush were without a shadow of a doubt a gross underestimate (he couldn't even be bothered to get the number of dead American troops right) 30,000 dead among the people we were allegedly coming to save is still an appalling notion. The possibility that we have actually helped kill as many as half a million people suggests a war crime of truly twentieth century proportions.

In some countries, denying the fact of mass murder is considered a felony offence, incurring harsh penalties. But then, it all depends on who is being murdered, and by whom.

Indeed. Thank heavens we have these things called "editors" and forces like "concision" that help keep this sort of unpleasantness out of our mainstream dailies.