The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
estimate of
violent (direct) deaths in Iraq.160
It
estimated that, between 2003 and 2007,
at least
87,000 direct conflict deaths had occurred.
254.
The report
also considered indirect deaths, and commented on the
difference
between the
figures reported by the two Lancet
studies and
the IFHS:
“At first
glance, such a wide range seems to imply that the exact number of
deaths
due to
violence remains unknown. But the quality and reliability of these
surveys is
not equal.
The most recent study (2008) [the IFHS] surveyed 9,345 households,
and
was
conducted under the auspices of the World Health Organization. The
previous
two studies
[the Lancet
studies],
both conducted under difficult circumstances and
with
limited resources, surveyed 990 (2004) and 1,849 (2006) households.
The
gain in
precision with greater numbers of households surveyed in the 2008
study
is obvious
…”
255.
The report
estimated that there had been more than 150,000 indirect
deaths
in Iraq
between March 2003 and March 2008 (with a wide possible range
between
80,000 and 234,000).
256.
A further
analysis was undertaken in 2013 by a team of American, Canadian
and
Iraqi
researchers, based on a sample of 2,000 households.161
Unlike
earlier studies,
this was
undertaken when the situation on the ground was relatively calm.
The study
concluded
that there had been 461,000 excess deaths from 2003 to 2011. Most
excess
deaths were
due to direct violence but about a third resulted from indirect
causes, such
as the
failures of health, sanitation, transportation, communication and
other systems.
257.
About a third
of the deaths due to direct violence were attributed to coalition
forces
(some
90,000), and a third to militias. The study reported that at the
peak of the conflict
men faced a
2.9 percent higher risk of death than they did before the war and
women a
0.7 percent
higher risk of death.
258.
The majority
(63 percent) of violent deaths were the result of gunshot
with
12 percent
attributed to car bombs.
259.
The Inquiry is
not aware of any comprehensive list of non‑Iraqi civilian
casualties,
or of UK
civilian casualties in Iraq. The UK Government did not maintain a
record of
deaths and
injuries to UK civilians in Iraq.
260.
The Brookings
Iraq Index, drawing on a partial list of contractors killed in
Iraq
maintained
by the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (ICCC), reported that by
October 2009
160
Geneva
Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, September
2008, Global
Burden of
Armed Violence.
161
Hagopian A
et al. Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and
Occupation: Findings
from a
National Cluster Sample Survey by the University Collaborative Iraq
Mortality Study. PLOS
Medicine 10(10)
(2013).
216