Gus mentioned a new study shows that over 600,000 people have suffered violent death in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Read the study in the British journal Lancet (pdf file). It is a statistical study based on randomly-chosen clusters of interviews. There is less than a 2% chance that the number of dead is under 400,000. This is a much higher figure than official sources have reported.

Les Roberts, one of the co-authors, was interviewed on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman (mp3). He noted a change in U.S.-American media landscape. When their first study came out in the Lancet in 2004, the British prime minister was asked about it by reporters three times in the first week after publication. The American president was asked only 14 months later - and not by a reporter, but by a member of the public. Now, the new study had hardly been out for several hours when he was already asked about it by reporters.

President Bush dismissed the study, but at least he had to address it.

Mark