Well, thanks for the complement but I thought I was clear that the number can’t be known. Still, the study is useful as a starting point- maybe the number is half that, maybe it is double.

Unless I misunderstand the study myself the thing that you and most conservatives seem to be unclear about is that the deaths are not necessarily violent:

According to the survey results, Iraq’s mortality rate in the year before the invasion was 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people; in the post-invasion period it was 13.3 deaths per 1,000 people per year. The difference between these rates was used to calculate “excess deaths.”

So the state of the hospitals and fact that we have not re-established the electrical network is as influential to these numbers as the roaming death squads and the ‘collateral damage’ inherent in using the world’s most powerful military.

In any case it seems terribly disingenuous for the right to question the methodology of this study while accepting it in other non-US-invasion arenas. It looks pretty sound on the face of it:

The interviewers asked for death certificates 87 percent of the time; when they did, more than 90 percent of households produced certificates.

At least under the Saddam leadership, they had running water and food

I almost choked on that one…

Yah, that Saddam was a fab leader. Thank goodness he did so many nobel things during his leadership. I bet someone, somewhere has nominated him for the peace prize for all the rapes, tortures, mass murders, live-burials, slavery, human trafficking, etc…, he so generously gave his people.

Maybe they’ll name a library after him.

Consider all the links from this post:

A NEW LANCET STUDY ON IRAQI CASUALTIES: I’m skeptical, given their past track record. Meanwhile, Tim Blair notes the paucity of actual data: “Remember: Lancet came up with this via a survey that identified precisely 547 deaths (as reported by the New York Times).” He also notes that it’s a rather large claim by historical standards: “It is a larger number than were killed in Germany during five years (and 955,044 tons) of WWII bombing.” John Wixted comments:

The Lancet, of course, is the same journal that published a similarly flawed study on the eve of the last presidential election in a transparent attempt to influence the outcome (to no avail, fortunately). That study claimed that more than 100,000 Iraqis had died as a result of the invasion.

(Compare that claim with this UN study.) He notes that The Lancet also claimed that 567,000 Iraqis died as a result of sanctions before the war. Omar of Iraq the Model is not pleased, and one of his commenters wonders where all the bodies are. And Chicago Tribune blogger Frank James says that people are right to be skeptical.

UPDATE: MedPundit Sydney Smith notes that the study is getting a skeptical reception from statisticians.

If you only read one thing about the fake study, read the piece from Omar Fadil — who lives in Iraq. This quote from Omar pretty well sums up my thoughts on those asinine numbers you are referring to:

To me their motives are clear, all they want is to prove that our struggle for freedom was the wrong thing to do. And they shamelessly use lies to do this…when they did not find the death they wanted to see on the ground, they faked it on paper! They disgust me…

It brings to mind: Dead Iraqi Would Have Loved Democracy

AND NOBODY WOULD PRINT IT!