AP Tallies Death Toll in Iraq: Will Many Dispute?

By: KIM GAMEL, The Associated Press Iraq's government has recorded 87,215 of its citizens killed since 2005 in violence ranging from catastrophic bombings to execution-style slayings, according to government statistics that break open one of the most closely guarded secrets of the war.

Combined with tallies based on hospital sources and media reports since the beginning of the war and an in-depth review of available evidence by The Associated Press, the figures show that more than 110,600 Iraqis have died in violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The number is a minimum count of violent deaths. The official who provided the data to The AP, on condition of anonymity because of its sensitivity, estimated the actual number of deaths at 10 to 20 percent higher because of thousands who are missing and civilians who were buried in the chaos of war without official records.

The Health Ministry has tallied death certificates since 2005, and the United Nations began using them late that year ? along with hospital and morgue figures ? to release casualty counts publicly. But the Iraqi numbers disappeared by early 2007, when sectarian violence was putting political pressure on the U.S. and Iraqi governments. The United Nations "repeatedly asked for that cooperation" to resume but never received a response, U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said Thursday.

The data measure only violent deaths ? people killed in the shootings, bombings, mortar attacks and beheadings that have ravaged Iraq. Indirect factors such as damage to infrastructure, health care and stress that caused thousands more to die are excluded.

Authoritative statistics for 2003 and 2004 do not exist. But Iraq Body Count, a private, British-based group, has tallied civilian deaths from media reports and other sources since the war's start. The AP reviewed the Iraq Body Count analysis and confirmed its conclusions by sifting the data and consulting experts. The AP also interviewed experts involved with previous studies, prominent Iraq analysts and provincial and medical officials to determine that the new tally was credible.

The AP also added its tabulation of deaths since Feb. 28, the last date in the Health Ministry count.

The three figures add up to more than 110,600 Iraqis who have died in the war.

That total generally coincides with trends reported by reputable surveys, compiled either by tallying deaths reported by international journalists, or by surveying samplings of Iraqi households and extrapolating the numbers.

Iraq Body Count's estimate of deaths since the start of the war, excluding police and soldiers, is a range ? between 91,466 and 99,861.

The numbers show just how traumatic the war has been for Iraq. In a nation of 29 million people, the deaths represent 0.38 percent of the population. Proportionally, that would be like the United States losing 1.2 million people to violence in the four-year period; about 17,000 people are murdered every year in the United States.

Security has improved since the worst years, but almost every person in Iraq has been touched by violence.

"We have lost everything," said Badriya Abbas Jabbar, 54. A 2007 truck bombing targeting a market near her Baghdad home killed three granddaughters, a son and a niece.

The Health Ministry figures indicate such violence was tremendously deadly. Of the 87,215 deaths, 59,957 were in 2006 and 2007, when sectarian attacks soared and death squads roamed the streets. The period was marked by catastrophic bombings and execution-style killings.

Quantifying deaths during the Iraq war always has been difficult. Records were not always compiled centrally, and the brutal insurgency sharply limited on-the-scene reporting. The U.S. military never shared its data.

The ministry always was at the forefront of counting deaths. Under Saddam Hussein, casualty figures were compiled even as U.S. troops closed in on Baghdad, though it later abandoned that effort. The ministry resumed reliable record-keeping at the start of 2005.

The ministry does not have figures for the first two years of the war because it was devastated in the aftermath of the invasion, the official said.

Experts said the count constitutes an important baseline, albeit an incomplete one. Richard Brennan, who has done mortality research in Congo and Kosovo, said it is likely a "gross underestimate" because many deaths go unrecorded in war zones.

The Iraqi Body Count numbers are likely even more incomplete, given that many killings occurred in incidents that journalists were unaware of or in inaccessible areas.

Mass graves have been turning up as improved security allows patrols in formerly off-limits areas, but how many remain never will be known.

The death toll in Iraq has been a hotly disputed subject because of the high political stakes in a war opposed by many countries and by a large portion of the American public. Critics on each side accuse the other of manipulating the numbers.

Two previous studies drew particularly harsh criticism by supporters of the war. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in a survey of Iraqi households published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, projected that 601,027 Iraqis were killed through July 2006. Opinion Research Business, a British marketing research company, released an even harsher assessment, estimating that more than 1 million Iraqis were killed through August 2007, again based on surveys of households.

While the Pentagon maintains meticulous records of the number of American troops killed ? at least 4,276 as of Thursday ? it does not publicly release comprehensive Iraqi casualty figures. American units do compile figures, drawing them mostly from the Iraqi military. They are used to determine trends, according to Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, a U.S. spokesman in Baghdad.

The AP has filed Freedom of Information Act requests since 2005 seeking that data, but has not received it.

The U.S. policy to not fully address civilian deaths has drawn heavy criticism from human-rights groups.

"We believe that all warring parties have a duty to keep information on casualties," said Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch in New York. "It's one of many factors one needs to analyze compliance with international humanitarian law."

Beginning in May 2005, The AP has tracked war-related casualties as reported by police, hospital and government officials, mosque workers and verifiable witness accounts, breaking down the victims into civilians, soldiers and police. That tally has reached 46,065, including 37,205 civilians, but also underrepresents the true numbers because many killings go unreported, especially in more remote areas.

Those numbers rose significantly Thursday with two suicide attacks that killed at least 78 people.

The Iraqi official who provided the Health Ministry figures expressed confidence in its count. He said local authorities consistently reported on violence throughout the war, and that the ministry accurately compiled their reports.

He acknowledged some slain insurgents could be included in the count but said he believed that number was low because few insurgents went to hospitals for treatment out of fear of detection, and many insurgent groups buried their fighters without death certificates.