Conventional wisdom in American politics focuses only on American costs in the war in Iraq: But the human cost to the Iraqis themselves are nearly ignored in political discourse, the news media, and intellectual circles. This site is a corrective to those oversights.
We present empirical reports, studies, and other accounts that convey and assess the consequences of war for the people of Iraq. Three major studies of war mortality have been done in Iraq. They bear strong similarities in their findings, but have some important differences, too. The first household survey that appeared was published in The Lancet in October , measuring the war-related mortality in the war's first 18 months.
The researchers--mainly epidemiologists from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and medical personnel in Iraq--estimated 98, "excess deaths" due to war. The second household survey, conducted by the Hopkins scientists again, was completed in June and published four months later in The Lancet.
Another household survey, this one conducted by the Iraq Ministry of Health at the same time as the second Hopkins study, found , excess deaths, , by violence. As is the case with most such surveys conducted during time of war, there were problems in data gathering and the analysis tended to minimize violent death estimates.
But the survey generally confirmed the very high mortality reported in The Lancet. It should be noted that both the second Lancet article and the New England Journal of Medicine article were based on studies that were completed at the height of war-related violence in Iraq. Large-scale fighting continued for another year and slowly subsided for a year after that to lower but continuing levels.
