ESTIMATES, FOR WHATEVER THEY'RE WORTH. A British polling agency released a new study this week that suggests that even the highest estimates of Iraqi deaths so far have been far below the actual toll. The poll, conducted by a group called ORB, asked 1,462 adult Iraqis, "How many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003?" Based on their responses, researchers believe that the death toll so far in Iraq is around 1.2 million. While the U.S. military has claimed a 55 percent reduction in the number of civilian deaths resulting from sectarian violence since the surge, neither the U.S. nor the Iraqi government have provided figures on the total number of deaths in the country. A study published in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet last year estimated that 600,000 Iraqis had died since the U.S. invasion. The U.N. estimates that 34,452 civilians were killed in 2006 alone, while the Iraqi government put the total at 12,357 for last year.
--Kate Sheppard
