The Killing Must Stop

A group of American and Iraqi medical researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health released a new study on civilian casualties in Iraq Wednesday morning. Their conclusion? 655,000 more civilians have died as a result of violence since the U.S. invasion than would have died if there had been no invasion. The estimate is based on interviews with nearly 2,000 households in 47 neighborhoods across the country.

The survey shows that the range of deaths could be from 425,000 to 800,000 people, but they believe 655,000 is the best estimate. The causes of death include gunshots, car bombs and other explosives, and air strikes. U.S. and other coalition forces were responsible, the study says, for 31% of the deaths – 200,000 people. The violence of the insurgency and civil war sparked by the invasion caused the rest. The study, "Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq," was published in a British medical journal, The Lancet.

According to The New York Times, "the study uses a method similar to that employed in estimates of casualty figures in other conflict areas like Darfur and Congo," and noted that "statistics experts in the United States who were able to review the study said the methods used by the interviewers looked legitimate." The Washington Post quoted a Human Rights Watch official who said, "We have no reason to question the findings or the accuracy" of the study.

When answering a question last December about how many Iraqis had been killed, President Bush replied, "I would say 30,000, more or less." This study shows that it may well be 20 times that number. The latest Pentagon numbers show 2,749 American troops have died, and more than 20,000 are wounded. This unnecessary war is a tragedy for American and Iraqi families and a moral outrage before God.

--Jim Wallis