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<TD><NOSCRIPT><A href="http://ads.web.aol.com/link/93103276/aol"><IMG
height=60 alt="Click Here" src="http://ads.web.aol.com/image/93103276/aol"
width=468 border=0></A></NOSCRIPT><FONT size=4>Note: The study below
does not include other war-related deaths such as those occurring because
of the lack of care available because of the destruction of
about 5/6 of the Iraqi health care system -- hospitals, clinics, etc
-- and the loss of health care personnel.</FONT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></DIV>
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<H5>POSTED: 2:57 a.m. EDT, October 11, 2006</H5></TD></TR></FONT></DIV>
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<H1>Disputed study claims 655,000 Iraqi deaths</H1>
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<P><B>NEW YORK</B> (AP) -- A controversial new study contends nearly
655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war, suggesting a far higher death
toll than other estimates.</P>
<P>The timing of the survey's release, just a few weeks before the U.S.
congressional elections, led one expert to call it "politics."</P>
<P>In the new study, researchers attempt to calculate how many more Iraqis
have died since March 2003 than one would expect without the war. Their
conclusion, based on interviews of households and not a body count, is
that about 600,000 died from violence, mostly gunfire. They also found a
small increase in deaths from other causes like heart disease and
cancer.</P>
<P>"Deaths are occurring in Iraq now at a rate more than three times that
from before the invasion of March 2003," Dr. Gilbert Burnham, lead author
of the study, said in a statement.</P>
<P>The study by Burnham, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health, and others is to be published on the Web site of The Lancet, a
medical journal.</P>
<P>An accurate count of Iraqi deaths has been difficult to obtain, but one
respected group puts its rough estimate at closer to 50,000. And at least
one expert was skeptical of the new findings.</P>
<P>"They're almost certainly way too high," said Anthony Cordesman of the
Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. He
criticized the way the estimate was derived and noted that the results
were released shortly before the Nov. 7 elections in the United
States.</P>
<P>"This is not analysis, this is politics," Cordesman said.</P>
<P>The work updates an earlier Johns Hopkins study -- that one was
released just before the November 2004 presidential election. At the time,
the lead researcher, Les Roberts of Hopkins, said the timing was
deliberate. Many of the same researchers were involved in the latest
estimate.</P>
<P>Speaking of the new study, Burnham said the estimate was much higher
than others because it was derived from a house-to-house survey rather
than approaches that depend on body counts or media reports.</P>
<P>A private group called Iraqi Body Count, for example, says it has
recorded about 44,000 to 49,000 civilian Iraqi deaths. But it notes that
those totals are based on media reports, which it says probably overlook
"many if not most civilian casualties."</P>
<P>For Burnham's study, researchers gathered data from a sample of 1,849
Iraqi households with a total of 12,801 residents from late May to early
July. That sample was used to extrapolate the total figure. The estimate
deals with deaths up to July.</P>
<P>The survey participants attributed about 31 percent of violent deaths
to coalition forces.</P>
<P>Accurate death tolls have been difficult to obtain ever since the Iraq
conflict began in March 2003. When top Iraqi political officials cite
death numbers, they often refuse to cite the source of the numbers.</P>
<P>The Health Ministry, which tallies civilian deaths, relies on reports
from government hospitals and morgues. The Interior Ministry compiles its
figures from police stations, while the Defense Ministry reports deaths
only among army soldiers and insurgents killed in combat.</P>
<P>The United Nations keeps its own count, based largely on reports from
the Baghdad morgue and the Health Ministry.</P>
<P>The major funder of the new study was the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.</P>
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<TD class=font-cn><SPAN class=fonttitle>Find this article at:</SPAN>
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