Iraqi death toll from 2003 to 2011 war and subsequent conflict estimated at half a million

A scientific study calculating Iraqi deaths for almost the complete period of the US-led war and subsequent occupation reported that close to half a million deaths are directly or indirectly attributable to the conflict.

The study is published in PLOS Medicine wherein a team of researchers from Iraq and the US led by Amy Hagopian, of the University of Washington, conducted a survey in 2000 households across Iraq and used the data to estimate death rates for the two year-period before the war began in March 2003 and the subsequent years until mid-2011.

Estimates that extrapolate from a small number of reported deaths to the entire population are associated with considerable uncertainty, and based on statistical methods attempting to account for this, the researchers said that they are 95 percent confident that the true number of excess deaths lies between 48,000 and 751,000.

Hagopian and colleagues found that the wartime crude death rate in Iraq was more than 50 percent higher than the death rate during the two-year period preceding the war.

Based on those rates, the researchers estimate the total excess Iraqi deaths attributable to the war through mid-2011 to be about 405,000.

They also estimated that an additional 56,000 deaths were not counted due to migration. Including this number, their final estimate is that close to half a million people died in Iraq as a result of the war and subsequent occupation from March 2003 to June 2011.

The risk of death at the peak of the conflict in 2006 almost tripled for men and rose by 70 percent for women.

Violent deaths were attributed primarily to coalition forces (35%) and militia (32%). The majority (63%) of violent deaths were from gunshots. Car bombs accounted for 12%.