Researchers from Johns Hopkins University have released a report claiming that more than 600,000 civilians have died violently because of the U.S. war in Iraq.
The report claims that the death rate in Iraq has tripled since the war began in 2003, causing an average of 500 fatalities a day, or 15,000 deaths a month.
If the figures are correct, then the U.S. has sparked a humanitarian crisis equal in scale to the current Darfur situation, and could potentially even surpass Rwanda within a year and a half. These are serious allegations.
Unlike the Rwanda and Darfur conflicts, however, the Iraq violence is not being committed by any one group exclusively against another. Gunshots are the number-one cause of death in the statistics, and when you include car bombs, air strikes, beheadings and riots, the violence is both diverse and extensive.
A common reason used to defend the Iraq invasion has been Saddam Hussein’s persecution and mass murder of certain religious and ethnic groups. Iraq has changed since then. Now, with an American influence of anti-discriminatory values, Iraq has become an equal-opportunity slaughterhouse.
The Hopkins report, with its margin of error, estimates between 400,000 and 900,000 deaths since March 2003. According to The Washington Post, the researchers are 95 percent certain of the estimate. But because it is significantly higher than any others, and since its release coincides with midterm elections, it became instantly controversial.
So far, no one has been able to disprove or discredit them. All critics can do is compare the figures to lower estimates, and argue that the survey’s findings are “unlikely.”
Speaking in December 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush estimated that 30,000 civilians had died since the war began in March of 2003. If the Hopkins report is valid, then Bush’s estimate is 20-times too low and covers just two months of the war.
Other estimates are probably more valid than the extremes from Hopkins and Bush. According to an editorial in The Washington Post: “The independent British organization Iraq Body Count reports 44,000-49,000 deaths, which is probably too low. President Bush’s “about 30,000″ in December was obviously too low. The Iraqi group Iraqiyun reported 128,000 between the invasion and July 2005, which is probably closer to the mark. Extrapolated to the present, the figure would be in the high 100,000s or low 200,000s. But nearly 400,000 couldn’t possibly be the answer.”
William A. Arkin of The Washington Post used a recent United Nations survey to show the faults of the Hopkin’s figure. For August 2006, the U.N. identified 3,009 casualties, or roughly 100 a day, and, according to Arkin, the violence in Iraq at present is widely considered to be at its peak. Yet the Hopkins report claims an average of 500 deaths for every day since March of 2003.
Arkin asks, “Is it possible that the U.N. is not seeing four out of every five Iraqis who is dying, even today? It is possible. But it is not likely.”
The large figures have sparked a very necessary discussion, not just about statistical validity, but about a much more serious topic.
Whether 30, 50, 100, 200, 400, 600, or 900 thousand have died in Iraq, the number is unacceptable.
According to recent public opinion polls from WorldPublicOpinion.org, a majority of Iraqis favor U.S. withdrawal, and nearly half approve of the insurgent attacks upon U.S.-led forces.
Several thousand Iraqi families deserve apologies, but there is no time, with elections and war, for a “sorry” from those who owe it.