Juan Cole: 250,000 Civilians Dead in Bushs War?
Source: Informed Comment (Blog) (1-10-08) [Mr. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. His website is http://www.juancole.com.] A new World Health Organization study estimates the excess numbers of civilians killed in violence in Iraq from April 2003 through June 2006 at between 101,000 and 224,000. They settled on 151,000 or so as the most likely number. This number is an estimate of how many people died of violence beyond what you would have expected from the 2001-2002 baseline. Violent deaths increased 17 times over once the Bush administration invaded the country. As I read the AP article, the study actually found more like 302,000 excess deaths, but only attributed 151,000 to violence. It seems to me possible that some of the other 151,000 excess deaths could also be chalked up to the US invasion and the reaction to it, even if they are not violent. There have been disease outbreaks, shortages of medicine, poor medical care
