655,000

[ItalianStereotype]

these numbers originally came from a "study" that was published by Lancet.com. the same group of people who originally said that the Iraqi War caused 100,000 deaths, which was totally untrue. the study that it was based off of purported that there were EXCESS deaths in Iraq, the number of which was at or around 100,000 that year. to claim that all of these deaths were caused by the US is idiotic.

secondly, there weren't even 100,000 excess deaths; rather the study showed that the confidence interval was 2,000 to 200,000 higher than what the author had used for pre-war deaths.

third, no deaths were actually measured (and I suspect that this was the case in this test as well). the author took as fact the hypothetical measurement of post war Iraqi deaths as compared to a ridiculously low balled pre war death count, one that was comparatively lower than the US death rate. and really, as there was no open exchange of information in Hussein's Iraq, nobody really knows the death rate of pre-war Iraq.

fourth, the methodology of both tests was completely unsound. the team claims that they were able to measure statistics in Fallujah, undoubtedly one of the most dangerous places in Iraq, but were unable to conduct the same tests in the more docile southern and northern provinces due to safety issues. bullshit.

I don't buy their shit for a second.