A STUDY that claimed 650,000 people were killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq was partly funded by the antiwar billionaire George Soros.

Soros, 77, provided almost half the £50,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead.

The study, published in 2006, was hailed by antiwar campaigners as evidence of the scale of the disaster caused by the invasion, but Downing Street and President George Bush challenged its methodology.

New research published by The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people - less than a quarter of The Lancet estimate - have died since the invasion in 2003.

“The authors should have disclosed the [Soros] donation and for many people that would have been a disqualifying factor in terms of publishing the research,” said Michael Spagat, economics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London.

The Lancet study was commissioned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and led by Les Roberts, an associate professor and epidemiologist at Columbia University. He reportedly opposed the war from the outset.

His team surveyed 1,849 homes at 47 sites across Iraq, asking people about births, deaths and migration in their households.

Professor John Tirman of MIT said this weekend that $46,000 (£23,000) of the approximate £50,000 cost of the study had come from Soros’s Open Society Institute.

Roberts said this weekend: “In retrospect, it was probably unwise to have taken money that could have looked like it would result in a political slant. I am adamant this could not have affected the outcome of the research.”

The Lancet did not break any rules by failing to disclose Soros’s sponsorship.

It is his money and if he sees a threat he has the right to spend his money the way he wants to. People killed; the other study did not report fighters. It is an illegal war and we invaded. I keep hearing from Rob he will defend our country. Will you? The fighters were defending their country. We have accepted that and are working with both groups now. The weird thing is we have in Guantanmo the same kind of people we are supporting now. The Guantanimo people are being studied. Creepy and sort of Hitlerish.

Studying human nature for prison control and group control. What works best? Thre might not be a scientific bases for Creationism but we will get one for people control.

Kevin, thanks for sharing. Soros is a Hungarian who has made his money by manipulating world currencies!!!

Studying human nature for prison control and group control. What works best? Thre might not be a scientific bases for Creationism but we will get one for people control. You have officially lost your frikin mind you weirdo.

Studying human nature for prison control and group control. What works best? Thre might not be a scientific bases for Creationism but we will get one for people control.

You have officially lost your frikin mind you weirdo.

Everlong, I'm not sure if you saw it but I wrote two posts to Unebug about how she communicates. I had it with her and told her not to bother with me or to reply to my posts anymore. She simply can't grasp the concept of directly responding to someone's post or to stay on topic or admit to her bias.

Because let's face it, if Dick Cheney funded a study that said only 600 Iraqis have died and that the authors were for the war and insisted that the study be released before the 2006 elections, she would have screamed bloody murder and so would I.

And I told her this at least twice already and in typical Unebug fashion she refused to acknowledge it. Because a sane person would say, "OK, I see your point and I can see how some people would have a problem with a study funded by a guy who has been against Bush and the war." But no, that would be too foreign of a concept for her.