Just Foreign Policy Press Releases
PRESS RELEASE
September 18, 2007
Independent Poll Confirms Iraqi Death Toll Over a Million
Contact: Patrick McElwee, 202-657-4898; Robert Naiman, 217-979-2857
Washington, D.C. – A new poll conducted in Iraq has estimated that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. These results support last month's independent conclusion by the U.S.-based group Just Foreign Policy that the Iraqi death toll had surpassed one million. Just Foreign Policy's frequently updated estimate is based on an extrapolation from a study published in The Lancet in October 2006.
The new poll was conducted in August by ORB, a British polling agency that has been tracking public opinion in Iraq since 2005.
The existence of two studies, conducted independently and employing different methods, which indicate that over a million Iraqis have been killed constitutes strong evidence that the Iraqi death toll is much higher than most policymakers and journalists have so far acknowledged. As Bob Herbert wrote in Saturday's New York Times, "Based on all available evidence, it seems unreasonable to believe that fewer than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed thus far. Many very serious scholars believe the total is much higher."
ORB asked a representative sample of 1,499 adults the following question:
How many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (i.e. as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age)? Please note that I mean those who were actually living under your roof.
Responses were as follows:
None: 78%
One: 16%
Two: 5%
Three: 1%
Four or more: 0.2%
Given that the 2005 census counted 4,050,597 households in Iraq, this suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths since the 2003 invasion. (Details can be found on the ORB website: http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=78)
Just Foreign Policy currently estimates that just over 1.05 million Iraqis have been killed. (More information is available at: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html)
Robert Naiman, national coordinator of Just Foreign Policy, has shown that the two studies are consistent with each other. (See Naiman's article on the Huffington Post, "UK Poll Confirms Extrapolation of Lancet's Iraq Death Toll": http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/uk-poll-consistent-with-1_b_64475.html)
Just Foreign Policy is an independent and non-partisan membership organization founded in 2006. Our founding board includes Jeff Faux, Founding President of the Economic Policy Institute; Vicente Navarro, Professor of Public Policy, Sociology, and Policy Studies at Health Policy and Management and International Health at JohnsHopkinsUniversity; Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP; and former Congressman Tom Andrews. More information is available on our web site: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org
PRESS RELEASE
August 9, 2007
Just Foreign Policy
One Million Iraqis Have Been Killed Due to the U.S. Invasion
Contact: Patrick McElwee, 202-657-4898; Robert Naiman, 217-979-2857 (cell)
Washington, D.C. – One million Iraqis have died from violence as a result of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of their country, according to an estimate from the organization Just Foreign Policy. The estimate is based on a scientific study conducted last year and a rate of increase in deaths since then derived from media reports.
Just Foreign Policy is making the frequently updated estimate available through a Web-based counter. (Available here: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html )
Last October, the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet published a study estimating that 601,000 violent Iraqi deaths were attributable to the U.S.-led invasion as of July 2006. That study relied on a cross-sectional cluster survey, the method used to estimate deaths all over the world in the aftermath of natural and manmade disasters.
Since that estimate was only for deaths until last July, it necessarily does not include Iraqis who have been killed since.
“The Lancet study is extremely important, as it provided a scientific estimate of Iraqi deaths,” said Robert Naiman, national coordinator of Just Foreign Policy. “However, we need to remind ourselves that the toll rises ever higher as the violence and occupation continue. The death toll in Iraq has now surpassed that of the Rwandan genocide.”
To produce the estimate, Just Foreign Policy obtains a rate of how quickly deaths are mounting in Iraq from the public database maintained by Iraq Body Count (IBC). IBC records the subset of violent Iraqi civilian deaths that are reported in at least two English-language press outlets. That rate is then applied to the more comprehensive estimate of Iraqi deaths provided by the Lancet study. More details are available on the Just Foreign Policy website: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/counterexplanation.html
“Our estimate, unlike the original study on which it is based, is not the direct result of a survey.” said Patrick McElwee, policy analyst at Just Foreign Policy. “However, absent a follow-up study, this constitutes a best estimate of violent Iraqi deaths that is certainly more reliable than widely cited numbers that, often for political reasons, ignore the findings of a sound demographic study.”
JustForeignPolicy.org is an independent and non-partisan membership organization founded in 2006. Our founding board includes Jeff Faux, Founding President of the Economic Policy Institute; Vicente Navarro, Professor of Public Policy, Sociology, and Policy Studies at Health Policy and Management and International Health at Johns Hopkins University; Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP; and former Congressman Tom Andrews. More information is available on our web site: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org
