Madam, - Edward Horgan, in his argument against the use of Shannon by US troops, is the latest to trot out uncritically the figure of 655,000 Iraqi dead since the US-led invasion (Opinion & Analysis, February 26th).
This estimate was published last October in the Lancet, and followed that journal's previous claim, in October 2004, of 100,000 deaths to that date. These numbers have gone virtually unquestioned in the mainstream media, and have been eagerly seized on by politicians and commentators. Lest they be given the status of incontrovertible truth, the methods used to produce them should be examined.
The latest Lancet figure was arrived at on the basis of interviews conducted in 1,800 households spread over 47 neighbourhoods and containing some 12,000 Iraqis. The number of violent deaths reported - 302 - was extrapolated for the total population of 26 million by simply multiplying it by 2,000. Apart from the fact that it makes no attempt to distinguish between civilian and combatant, the huge margin of error of the Lancet figure makes it useless as a reliable statistic.
By contrast, the voluntary (and, incidentally, anti-war) study group Iraq Body Count has avoided extrapolation from small samples and attempts to log every violent civilian death from meticulous reading of local media reports and hospital and morgue lists. Allowing for the possibility of under-counting, it arrives at figures of 12,000 such deaths for 2003, 10,500 for 2004, 14,000 for 2005 and 24,000 up to October 2006, giving a total of 60,500, less than 10 per cent of the Lancet estimate.
The figure of 655,000 would, if true, imply the following incredible circumstances: (i) an average of nearly 800 Iraqis died violently every day between October 2004 and October 2006; (ii) more than 7 per cent of the adult male population of Iraq has by now been killed; (iii) 90 per cent of those deaths remained hidden from any of the normal mechanisms of public recognition.
Those who peddle the Lancet figure also propagate the myth that coalition forces have been responsible for most civilian deaths. With the exception of the initial invasion period (6,000 deaths) and the battles for Falluja in 2004, the vast majority of such killings have been perpetrated by Sunni (including al-Qaeda) and Shia terror groups.
In particular, the sharp rise in 2006 reflects the sectarian warfare provoked by the destruction of the Shia Al-Askari mosque in February. This in turn is a continuation of the institutionalised sectarian violence under Saddam Hussein's regime, which killed more than a quarter of a million Iraqis during the 1990s alone.
There are valid reasons to criticise past actions of the coalition in Iraq and to question the exact nature of its future mission. This debate is not helped by gross exaggeration. - Yours, etc,
DERMOT MELEADY,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.