600,000 dead iraqis
bush’s off-the-cuff estimates and iraq body count have the iraqi death toll in the mid-five-figures. then come the scientists.
peer-reviewed and published in the lancet [pdf], this study suggests that the real death toll in iraq is in the mid-six figures.
Iraqi Death Toll Exceeds 600, 000, Study Estimates [wall street journal, 2006.10.11]“Since March 2003, an additional 2.5% of Iraq’s population has died above what would have occurred without conflict,” the report said. The country’s population is roughly 24 million people.
Human Rights Watch has estimated Saddam Hussein’s regime killed 250,000 to 290,000 people over 20 years.
i’m going to be very generous and thumbnail some death rates from this quote. under us-occupied iraq, that means in 43 months (march 2003 to october 2006), the dead-iraqi-rate has been just a shade under 14,000 per month (600,000 / 43 = 13,953.5). under hussein, the dead-iraqi-rate was just a shade over 1200 per month (290,000 / 249 = 1208.3). that makes us-occupied iraq over ten times as efficient at killing iraqis than the evil saddam hussein regime.
this means that 14,000 families have a new reason to hate america every month, and some of those 14,000 families might just have some crazy cousin willing to do something about it.
it also means that at this rate, we will have depopulated the entire country in 1714 months, or about 140 years. is that your exit strategy?