Report: UK government advisers backed Lancet study methods

LONDON: British government officials backed the methodology used by scientists who concluded that more than 600,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Monday.

The government publicly rejected the findings, published in The Lancet medical journal in October. But the BBC said documents obtained under freedom of information legislation showed advisers concluded that the much-criticized study had used sound methods.

The Lancet study, conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, estimated that 655,000 more Iraqis had died since March 2003 than one would expect without the war. The study estimated that 601,027 of those deaths were from violence.

The researchers, reflecting the inherent uncertainties in such extrapolations, said they were 95 percent certain that the real number lay somewhere between 392,979 and 942,636 deaths.

Read the rest at the International Herald Tribune

Related Link:
Perspective: Could 650,000 Iraqis really have died because of the invasion?

Related Link:
Study: Iraqi deaths between 392,000 and 942,000 with 654,000 best estimate