I believe the 100 thousand is a reference to three sources.
The first of these is an epidemiology study in
Lancet that estimated the number of dead based on an extensive household survey. The standard deviation was rather high on this study, but it was a first look at the documented + undocumented deaths in a chaotic war zone.
Quote:
Although the paper's authors acknowledge that thorough data collection was difficult in what is effectively still a war zone, the data they managed to collect are extensive: Iraqis were 2.5 times more likely to die in the 17 months following the invasion than in the 14 months before it. Before the invasion, the most common causes of death in Iraq were heart attacks, strokes and chronic diseases. Afterward, violent death was far ahead of all other causes.
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"We were shocked at the magnitude but we're quite sure that the estimate of 100,000 is a conservative estimate," said Dr. Gilbert Burnham of the Johns Hopkins study team. He said the team had excluded deaths in Falluja in making their estimate, since that city was the site of unusually intense violence.
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In 15 of the 33 communities visited, residents reported violent deaths in the family since the conflict started in March 2003. They attributed many of those deaths to attacks by coalition forces - mostly airstrikes - and most of the reported deaths were of women and children.
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The risk of violent death was 58 times higher than before the war, the researchers found.
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"The fact that more than half of the deaths caused by the occupation forces were women and children is a cause for concern," the authors wrote.
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From the International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/10/29/news/toll.html
There is also a survey by an Iraqi humanitarian organization, which arguabbly has better access to the country. They estimated the number of civilian deaths to be 128,000. One could, of course, argue that this organization has an axe to grind since their country has been devastated by an agressive war.
Quote:
Iraqi civilian casualties
By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
07/12/05 "UPI" - - BAGHDAD -- An Iraqi humanitarian organization is reporting that 128,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion began in March 2003.
Mafkarat al-Islam reported that chairman of the 'Iraqiyun humanitarian organization in Baghdad, Dr. Hatim al-'Alwani, said that the toll includes everyone who has been killed since that time, adding that 55 percent of those killed have been women and children aged 12 and under.
'Iraqiyun obtained data from relatives and families of the deceased, as well as from Iraqi hospitals in all the country's provinces. The 128,000 figure only includes those whose relatives have been informed of their deaths and does not include those were abducted, assassinated or simply disappeared.
The number includes those who died during the U.S. assaults on al-Fallujah and al-Qa'im. 'Iraqiyun's figures conflict with the Iraqi Body Count public database compiled by Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies. According to the Graduate Institute of International Studies' database, 39,000 Iraqis have been killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since March 2003. No official estimates of Iraqi casualties from the war have been issued by the Pentagon, which insists that it does not do "body counts." The Washington Post on July 12 reported that U.S. military deaths in Iraq now total 1,755.
Copyright © 2005 News World Communications Inc.
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That was originally from the UPI
http://www.informationclearinghouse....rticle9460.htm
The third source escapes me. I apologize for not recalling it.
However, a pro-coalition advicacy group published an article recently with an estimate of 25,000 casualties. The only problem with this study is that the numbers are exactly the same as the numbers of documented deaths, which is impossible in a country that large with that much of a breakdown of law and order and no appreciable journalist activity. Still the primary reason we do not have an accurate, reliable estimate is because journalists are not safe enough to report anything in Iraq outside of the Green Zone.
The number of documented, reported deaths are around 25,000 on the Iraq body count websites (
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/), but those that run the sites publically acknowledge that they do not know anything about many hot-spots and only report deaths reported in the media. There is a big information hole outside of the Green Zone, as any reporter will attest.
The coalition forces refuse to keep count, so all we are left with are these studies. This is a new trend for the United States to refuse to report civilian casualties and, to me, is
prima fascia evidence that the United States may not be acting in accordance with the Geneva Conventions in this war. After all, to hide a crime, one must hide the evidence.