The other side of the story: Iraq dead

How many civilians killed in Iraq? The argument has raged, since not long after the war begain nearly 5 years ago now. Estimates from Johns Hopkins and the Iraq Body Count database were dismissed as too high.

Well, Iraq Body Count is now saying there have been somewhere between 80 and 90 thousand civilian deaths. The Johns Hopkins survey came out with a new estimate in 2006 that reaffirmed the original report, and said over 600 thousand may have been killed by circumstances related to the hostilities.

But, according to the World Health Organization, a New study estimates 151,000 violent Iraqi deaths since 2003 invasion.

The study found that violence became a leading cause of death for Iraqi adults after March 2003 and the main cause for men aged 15-59 years. It indicated that on average 128 Iraqis per day died of violent causes in the first year following the invasion and that the average daily violent death toll was 115 in the second year and 126 in the third year. More than half of the violent deaths occurred in Baghdad.