Where did the 655,000 Iraqi dead figure come from?

Question

People are throwing it around as a fact, but I've been unable to find any form of coroboration. If somebody made it up as peice of anti-war propaganda it's doing one heck of a job. Can anyone provide a verifiable source, preferably more than one?

Answer 1

shouldnt a childs life matter, be it one or 10,000 cildren in any country or of any nationality??? what about the war torn families with wounded children whose mother or father are dead maybe even died in front of their face?

all that matters though is that the # has to be WAY off huh? Why does it have to be something like 9/11 to bring out compassion in us Americans? Thats why we are not so well accepted globally any longer...because our president is a war monger that is how the rest of America is looked at war mongerers who only care of how fat their portfolio's are getting and middle America is sleeping through this thumping their bibles at people who are different.

Answer 2

I have been unable to verify it as well. The highest number that has been verified is 50,000 since the beginning of the war. That number includes Iraqi on Iraqi violence as well.

To be truthful there just any way that the number of over half a million can be substantiated when after the war was supposed to be over we were only at a 1000 person body count. It is an unfortunate mis-statement that is being used to influence and solidify voters into believing the worst about the war, the economy, the future, and the party in control.

Answer 3

What s.k. said. Only it IS propaganda. They did a phone pole, not an actual body count. They called regular citizens, not any Iraqi gov't agency that would have the actual count on hand. Not even the whiny AP has a death estimate anywhere near that high.

The poling of a few thousand can not fully account for what happens in a country of 40 million.

Answer 4

John Hopkins University (very liberal university) got together American & Iraqi epidemiologists to do a study using Statistics employed during natural diasters & transferring that to casualities. If you are not confused yet, you are not trying. True VooDoo Math! They made it say what they wanted & released it 2 months before elections.

The UN estimates the number to be around 53,328. What a difference & the UN has men on ground in Iraq.

Answer 5

It came from an independent study based on a survey of 19,000 homes in Iraq. Based on the data collected the extrapolation comes to 655,000 dead. Getting a "real" number is virtually impossible...for instance estimates from WWII vary by millions depending on how you count. There is still no "official" estimate of the number of civilians killed in Vietnam. The government admits to 155,000 in Iraq so the 655,000 number, given the number of bombs dropped etc., is entirely possible.

How many will be killed when all major cities in the US get nuked?

Answer 6

John Hopkins University -- it's an estimate from interviewing Iraqi families. Apparently, about 1,900 families interviewed. The range at 95% accuracy was like between 390,000 to 940,000 dead. It's not propaganda -- hard to imagine it being to anybodies advantage right now -- only a couple of people in congress voted against going into this war. The press said nothing, the public said nothing.

Answer 7

You won't find anything to coroborate that number, because it is not an accurate count. We have not had a war to claim that many lives since WWII.

Answer 8

The figure came from a Mega Millions quick pick.

Answer 9

See above answer with one thing to add. It's not an accurate number that was taken from an actual body count, they interviewed door to door to arrive at that number.

Answer 10

I don't know, but THIS is the secret "prize" they're all dying for!...
http://www.strayreality.com/Lanis_Strayreality/iraq.htm