All I can say is, "Wow"
 

it's no coincidence that we chose the easiest target among the "axis of evil."

sometimes I fear that George Bush's stubbornness will be our undoing. the sorts of people who feel we should have never left Vietnam.

Well, CNN didn't quite get it right. According to CNN, the survey claims that "War has wiped out about 655,000 Iraqis or more than 500 people a day since the U.S.-led invasion" where as the survey itself says "As many as 654,965 more Iraqis may have died since hostilities began in Iraq in March 2003 than would have been expected under pre-war conditions".

There is a difference between "has" and "may have".

http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnew...iraq_2006.html

I think the "may have" language isn't relating to how many have died. I think the number of dead is verifiable. I was presuming the "may have" language dealt with a comparison of how many "have" died as opposed to how many "would have" died if the invasion never took place (which is a number that cannot possibly be known with certainty).

I would be interested in seeing how they conclude that 650,000 people that died "may have" not died if the invasion never happened. Presumably the 650,000 number relates to deaths directly caused by war related injuries.

a lot of deaths were occurring as the result of the sanctions against Iraq, btw.

Not all of the deaths are attributed to the war. Some of the deaths were attributed to disease and natural causes as well.

It's a sad fact that people die during war. They always have and always will. It doesn't make it right, but I get the feeling that you started this thread as another way to express your displeasure with the current administration and to stir the pot a bit with those of us that are more conservative than you.

Anyone who believes this report stand your heads...

655k Iraqis would be 2.5% of their population. Comparatively speaking, that would be like 7.5 million Americans being killed.

indy brought up the fact that they probably don't have enough power to make the conclusions they did. I wonder what the confidence intervals are on their estimate.

I continue to be amused at how people apparently cannot read a post of mine without immediately becoming defensive of Bush. I have not attacked Bush in this thread (if anything I have questioned how the numbers reported could be verified).