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The new Lancet report Mortality After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq is published online today. Jon Ihle from Backseatdrivers has a bit on it, to which I’ve responded. Whereas the initial Lancet survey, published in 2004 claimed controversially that 100,000 civilians had died as a result of the invasion and subsequent turmoil, the new figure is even more shocking.

According to the MIT sponsored report, there have been 654, 965 post-invasion deaths as a consequence of the war. Jon questions that a leap of half a million deaths in two years could be possible and according to an AP report there are those that consider it an exaggeration and claim the timing of the publication is political, arriving just before the mid term elections in the US.

It is certain that, like in 2004 this report will be attacked, or as is more likely, ignored as much as possible. The survey though seems to be based on sound evidence and could be more thorough.

Rather than using media reports of deaths in Iraq ( Iraq Body Count) they produced a national cross-sectional cluster sample survey based on 50 clusters (with 40 households per cluster) which were randomly selected from 16 Governorates (the 2004 report was based on 33 randomly selected clusters of 30 households with a mean of eight residents throughout Iraq).

As Ben Good pointed out in his comment to Jon post, it seems that the highest mortality rate occurred in males of military age:

“Deaths in men of military age, defined as 15–44 years of age, were disproportionately high and accounted for 59% (52–65) of post-invasion violent deaths, despite this subgroup accounting for only 24•4% of the Iraqi population.”

However, only 31% of post-invasion violent deaths were the result of coalition forces. And deaths "from air strikes were less commonly reported in 2006 than in 2003–04, but deaths from car explosions have increased since late 2005".

Overall they estimate that the death count as a result of the invasion and subsequent insurgency cost the lives of 2.5% of the Iraqi population in the study area.

No doubt it will, once again, become a bludgeon for anti-war protestors to wield and just another politically motivated hysterical attack for the politicians responsible for the destruction to spin out of the way.

Addendum: ‘Those’ quoted in the Associated Press report, which Jon linked to, who question the Lancet report belong to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This is a private neo-conservative think tank with strong ties to the US government and big business (Exxon and others). Here’s some stuff about them:

From Exxon Secrets

Deeds: 8 December, 1999
Held a conference in Washington, D.C., entitled "The Geopolitics of Energy into the 21st Century". Speakers included Robert Wilhelm, Director and Senior Vice President of Exxon Mobil Corporation. One of the Speakers on the environment was a Vice President of General Motors.

From Source Watch:
The Center for Strategic and International Studies is "one of those ephemeral constellations into which the luminaries of the American political establishment frequently arrange themselves in order to encourage policy to navigate by their lights: Madeleine K. Albright, Harold Brown, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Frank Charles Carlucci III, Warren Christopher, William Sebastian Cohen, Bob Dole, Lawrence Sidney Eagleburger, Stuart Eizenstat, Alexander Haig, Lee H. Hamilton, John Hamre, Sam Nunn, Paul O'Neill, Charles S. Robb, William Roth, and James Rodney Schlesinger.

That makes four former Secretaries of State, one former National Security Adviser, two former Secretaries for Defense, a former Secretary of the Treasury, a former Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a former Director of the CIA, and three Senators"; ... signatories to a May 2003 Declaration which effectively proposed, in the opinion of one commentator, that "the states of the European Union, which are among the richest and most powerful states in the world, should invite US government officials to attend their highest-level legislative and policy-making meetings, in order that these officials can ensure that the Europeans do not pursue policies which are independent of, or disapproved by, the American government."