A startling new household survey of Iraqis released last week claims as many as 1.2 million people may have died because of the conflict in Iraq - apparently lending weight to a 2006 survey in the Lancet that reported similarly high levels. More than one million deaths were already being suggested by anti-war campaigners, but such high counts have consistently been rejected by US and UK officials. The estimates, extrapolated from a sample of 1,461 adults around the country, were collected by a British polling agency, ORB, which asked Iraqis how many people living in their household had died as a result of the violence rather than from natural causes. Previous estimates, most prominently collected by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, reported in Lancet in October 2006, suggested almost half this number, 654,965, as a likely figure in a possible range of 390,000 to 940,000. Although the household survey was carried out by a polling organisation, rather than by epidemiological researchers operating under the discipline of scientific peer review, it has again raised the spectre that the 2003 invasion of Iraq has caused a far more substantial death toll than officially acknowledged by the US or UK governments or the Iraqi Ministry of Health.
More than one million deaths were already being suggested by anti-war campaigners, but such high counts have consistently been rejected by US and UK officials. The estimates, extrapolated from a sample of 1,461 adults around the country, were collected by a British polling agency, ORB, which asked Iraqis how many people living in their household had died as a result of the violence rather than from natural causes.
Previous estimates, most prominently collected by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, reported in Lancet in October 2006, suggested almost half this number, 654,965, as a likely figure in a possible range of 390,000 to 940,000.
Although the household survey was carried out by a polling organisation, rather than by epidemiological researchers operating under the discipline of scientific peer review, it has again raised the spectre that the 2003 invasion of Iraq has caused a far more substantial death toll than officially acknowledged by the US or UK governments or the Iraqi Ministry of Health.
"Today, most of Baghdad's neighborhoods are being patrolled by coalition and Iraqi forces who live among the people they protect. Many schools and markets are reopening. Citizens are coming forward with vital intelligence. Sectarian killings are down. And ordinary life is beginning to return." -- President Bush in his speech Thursday on Iraq BAGHDAD -- "Ordinary" isn't a word that residents of Baghdad use to describe their lives. Gunmen are driving people from neighborhoods in the city's southwest. Electricity, depending on which block you live on, is available as little as two hours a day. Running water, if it's available, is unsafe to drink. Car bombings are down, but most residents won't leave their neighborhoods, frightened that they'll encounter Shiite Muslim militiamen or Sunni Muslim extremists who'll kill them. Some markets are reopening in the southern neighborhood of Dora under the watch of U.S. soldiers, but no one from outside the neighborhood visits. As for schools, it's hard to say: The school year hasn't started yet.
"Today, most of Baghdad's neighborhoods are being patrolled by coalition and Iraqi forces who live among the people they protect. Many schools and markets are reopening. Citizens are coming forward with vital intelligence. Sectarian killings are down. And ordinary life is beginning to return." -- President Bush in his speech Thursday on Iraq
-- President Bush in his speech Thursday on Iraq
BAGHDAD -- "Ordinary" isn't a word that residents of Baghdad use to describe their lives.
Gunmen are driving people from neighborhoods in the city's southwest. Electricity, depending on which block you live on, is available as little as two hours a day. Running water, if it's available, is unsafe to drink.
Car bombings are down, but most residents won't leave their neighborhoods, frightened that they'll encounter Shiite Muslim militiamen or Sunni Muslim extremists who'll kill them.
Some markets are reopening in the southern neighborhood of Dora under the watch of U.S. soldiers, but no one from outside the neighborhood visits.
As for schools, it's hard to say: The school year hasn't started yet.
In Saidiyah, in southwest Baghdad, Ali Mohammed, 30, a Sunni, said nearly all the stores in his neighborhood had closed as Shiite and Sunni gunmen battled to control the area. The only clinic closed three months ago. It didn't have any medicine, anyway, he said. A university student, he fears leaving the neighborhood because the checkpoints are manned by police commandos, units known to be rife with Shiite militiamen, who alert gunmen in civilian cars to attack suspected Sunnis. Three days ago, a father and son were killed at a checkpoint, he said. Bush, he said, "is speaking the opposite of what's going on on the ground."
A university student, he fears leaving the neighborhood because the checkpoints are manned by police commandos, units known to be rife with Shiite militiamen, who alert gunmen in civilian cars to attack suspected Sunnis. Three days ago, a father and son were killed at a checkpoint, he said.
Bush, he said, "is speaking the opposite of what's going on on the ground."
