Well, it turns out there were some truly interesting things that went into that study that groups like TruthOut, DemocracyNow or major networks won't be reporting on.

For instance, war critic George Soros' Open Society Institute paid a pretty penny to fund the study. Besides the fact that Soros isn't a big Bush fan, but the two authors of the study are against the Iraq war as well. So much for objectivity.

Now, besides the fact that many critics, especially anti-war groups who have been counting the actual deaths in Iraq, said that the method used by the authors had major problems, but the authors told the science journal Lancet to make sure the "study" was published before the U.S. 2006 elections.

The link below is to the article which is published by the nonpartisan National Journal. Unebug, that means that the magazine is not for or against a political party, in case you try to attack it as some sort of right-wing mouth piece for President Bush.

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There is just no freaking way that 650,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed. Not even close. That's more than all of the soldiers we lost during WWII. Anyone throwing that number around, and I've even seen them do it on TV, is a moron.

Live in your dream world, you guys. A scientific method was used. The same method that is used by the UN after natual catastrophies. George Soros was on a panel on C-span and he showed what Foxguys say about him. Propaganda pig slop. He is a thinking person who saw similarities between the rhetoric of Bush and Germany in the 30's. Do you know what happened to Fallujah? Willy Pete & much detruction. Grow up. Bush says the Surge is working and yet there were more U.S. deaths than ever last year. Get informed. just 9 in the last few days. Why. ? The people are mad; it is an insurgency .

On Democracy Now an English reporter told of the morgues overflowing. thousands Bush only wants to report the Iraqiis that we shot and he ignored the victims of violence between the groups; yet who fanned the tension. We supported one side and then the other ; making for violence and death. Now American soldiers have been told not to shoot at approaching cars. Isn't that nice? Also leaders are toning down the killing by their soldiers; there will be accountability. We are becoming more civil but it is too late.

unebug will never read the entire article; and if she does it will get blown off as "opinion."

My problem with the Lancet study; is a calculation that goes back to the Roman Army which kept excellent records. One stat they has remained stable for over 2000 years is the ratio of dead to wounded after a military action. The ratio is one death=four wounded. So a hundred man unit that sustained ten deaths would essentially be out of action since it would have a total of fifty casualties. This ratio also applies to combat in areas with a high concentration of civilians. (Jane's Defense Weekly, October 2004)

According to the Lancet study there should have been two million, six hundred and twenty thousand wounded in Iraq during the time frame of their study. The wounded would have had to go somewhere for treatment; and for all the sporadic over crowding of Iraqi hospitals; they have never experienced the mass casualty influx that close to three million injured would have caused.

Despite twenty centuries of record keeping and battlefield experience; no one has wanted to pay attention to one of the few pieces of combat information that can be relied on. The exact number of Iraqi deaths will never be known, just as in any other war. The inflated figures posited by the Lancet however; simply will not hold up to any close scrutiny.

I read somewhere today that on average 130 Iraqis have die everyday, if that is close to the truth and truth is not what Goverment sources tell us then we need to calculate how long we have been there and multiply it with 130.

Now please excuse my ignorance but I don't understand the need for any type of scientific method for counting the war dead. What I don't understand why they can't just count the actual dead to the best of their ability. The group Iraq Body Count estimates the death toll to be around 30,000, and yes even that number is too high but certainly not the ballooned number of 650,000. In fact, that was one of many problems with the study.

"Sample size. The design for Lancet II committed eight surveyors to visit 50 regional clusters (the number ended up being 47) with each cluster consisting of 40 households. By contrast, in a 2004 survey, the United Nations Development Program used many more questioners to visit 2,200 clusters of 10 houses each.

This gave the U.N. investigators greater geographical variety and 10 times as many interviews, and produced a figure of about 24,000 excess deaths -- one-quarter the number in the first Lancet study. The Lancet II sample is so small that each violent death recorded translated to 2,000 dead Iraqis overall. The question arises whether the chosen clusters were enough to be truly representative of the entire Iraqi population and therefore a valid data set for extrapolating to nationwide totals."

And if Unebug actually read the article, which I know she won't, she would have found out that the "authors' of this study paid Iraqis to be surveyed. Certainly just one of many things that are a big no no. And Unebug, you always say I should read TruthOut and DemocracyNow, so why won't you read this article? The National Journal is read highly by all members of Congress (that includes Democrats.)

But it's nice to see your bias. I mean, if Dick Cheney's company funded that study and two of it's authors were pro-Iraq war and used shoddy methods and study said only 600 Iraqis died, you would be screaming bloody murder. (And so would I.) And let's stick to the topic, Unebug. Soros does a lot of mudflinging towards Bush too. Let's not get into that and only focus on this study and how "honest" the methods and results are.

Thanks 155 . opinion. I love you guys but I am a slow reader and I have to prioritize my time. As what was said on Democracy Now even if you 1/4 the number, it is awful . a war based on lies. What did those civilians have to do with Saddam? We were shaking his hand at about the same time he was gassing people and then we did not even want him prosecuted by the U.N.. Yet when Bushy- Cheney wanted an excuse for a war in the middle East guess who becomes the villain, our boy Saddam. It is just not ethical. It is not ethical that we are holding prisoners for years without a lawyer. It is not ethical that we are torturing innocent people with solitary confinement for years; the mind is delicate. It is not ethical that we feel we can take over a country , change their religion and their monetary system and not expect an insurgency. Michael Sauary (?) Dateline (Link)....who left the CIA in 04 said we should leave immediately or else we should send lots more troops in there and do a lot more killing. I do not know the answer but I expect that the Iraqii will continue to fight for their human dignity and we will continue to loose boys. Simple. Any of you men want to sign up or encourage your sons to go? Or pay the taxes so that we can support all the people in Iraq or Afghanistan during the wars- their countries are being disrupted and we are there. The more money the better.

Unebug, please stick to the topic. Let's not get into the whole "war was based on lies thing." And let's stop the whole thing about how these people are dying because they're fighting our troops. The vast majority of the dead Iraqis have been killed by their own people or the terrorists because they don't want Iraq to have the type of government that was voted for by the people.

Also, you say I should open my mind and read your Web sites but you refuse to do the same thing.

Barbara, "There are three kinds of lies, lies, damned lies and ststistics." DARRELL HUFF, author of "How to Lie with Statistics"(1954) His primer has been read by over half a million readers. His text shows how to deceive people with SAMPLING (random or stratified) in the use of AVERAGES(mean, median,or modal) ERRORS(probability, standard or unintentional) misuse of GRAPHS, INDEXES, and other TOOLS of Democratic persuasion. His text was used in my freshman statstics class. I have used it for 53 years. Anthony and A155MM' s critique's is valid.

Correction: are not is. Anthony's and A155MM's critiques are valid.

Barbara, The researchers' biases, the nature of the gathering of the samplings are questionable!!!

From the mails above it is easy to deduce that for some the Iraqi lives lost are meaningless and for some they mean something.

Welcome to Cagle; Holier Than Thou.

That works out to 189,000 dead. That would still leave close to 800,000 wounded unaccounted for. The 1-4 ratio has held up very well through the millennium; which makes me wonder where all the wounded went.

Questionable. Give me a break! everyone has a bias. We have caused the death of a hell of a lot of people. Anthony wants to count bodies. How many bodies are left after a bomb hits a house or an attack with Willy Pete that destroys a house and since the whole town of Fallujah was under attack - seige and the dogs are eating bodies. Give me a break. War is evil and we were the aggressor. It is an illegal war. We have bombed T.V. stations and killed Journalist because they reported the truth. Speak truth to power. Human dignity was abolished. Once truth is done away with what gives you the right to expect me now to say "Yes, yes ,the liar is now speaking the truth." I think you have more bias wanting to cover up the evil that was done to that nation of 26 million people. Madeline Albright said she did not care if a million children died because the water treatent plant in Iraq was bombed. Where are the principles of innocent children suffering? I watched her on T.V. yesterday; she talked of dialogue with Iran; I did not see horns on her head as I expected her to have. Simple. In comparison to Cheney she is not evil yet she is. Comparing the two numbers I would say that 666.000 casualties is far closer than the pittance 30,000 that Bush gave. Do you care? Disgust is felt.

Barbara, Do I care? You bet I do. I get disgusted when people lie to me (politicans et al.)because I have right to know the truth inoder to make good decisions. People who manipulate statistics disgust me, also, for the same reasons. The death of innocent people(collateral damage) is truly tragic.