654,965 Civilians Dead Due to Iraq Invasion

There are a lot of ways to measure the cost of the war in Iraq. According to John Murtha, the first 9 months of 2006 ran up a bill of $982 billion - on track to go over $1 trillion for this year. In the U.S. the primary counting being done was in the casualties to U.S. troops in Iraq - reportedly 20,887 with 2,819 dead. Or one might count the number of deaths so Iraqi civilians attributable to the invasion and occupation - 654,965.

Bush of course attempts to discredit the report saying the methods used are "pretty well discredited." However, this is exactly the same methodology used across the world to give accurate estimates of casualties due to war and disaster - the Indian Ocean tsunami for example. The Bush administration did not claim those numbers were not credible.

Let's try to put those 654,865 deaths into perspective. Iraq has a population approximately the size of Texas and Wisconsin combined (at least 2010 - another 4 years. With the violence escalating, the totals for the next four years are likely to dwarf the costs of the last 3 (plus).

State Populations and Casualites in Iraq