The Hindu : International : Six lakh Iraqis killed since U.S. invasion, says report

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Friday, Oct 13, 2006
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Six lakh Iraqis killed since U.S. invasion, says report

Hasan Suroor

Bush dismisses the casualty figures as not credible

LONDON: More than 600,000 Iraqis are estimated to have died since the United States-British invasion of their country three years ago, suggesting that the humanitarian crisis facing Iraq is significantly more serious than either Britain or U.S. are willing to acknowledge, according to a study by America's John Hopkins University, published in The Lancet, Britain's authoritative medical research journal.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore reckon that the mortality rates have more than doubled since the invasion, resulting in an average of 500 deaths a day. The new figures are much higher than any previously known estimate, making the Iraq invasion and its aftermath the "deadliest international conflict of the 21st Century'', according to Professor Gilbert Burnham and his team which conducted the survey.

But the findings provoked angry reaction from British and American Governments. U.S. President George W. Bush said the figures were "not credible''.

"I don't consider it a credible report. Neither does General Casey [the U.S. military boss in Iraq], neither do Iraqi officials,'' he said adding, "I stand by the figure that a lot of innocent people have lost their life... and that troubles me, and it grieves me."

British Foreign Office dismissed it as a "fairly small sample'' saying it relied on official Iraqi Government figures.

Anti-war groups condemned the continuing occupation of Iraq and demanded an independent inquiry into the growing humanitarian crisis.

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