Door-to-Door Surveys in Iraq Put Death Toll at 150,000

MARILYNN MARCHIONE writes:

About 151,000 Iraqis died from violence in the three years after the United States invaded, concludes the best effort yet to count deaths _ one that still may not settle the fierce debate over the war's true toll on civilians and others.

The estimate comes from projections by the World Health Organization and the Iraqi government, based on door-to-door surveys of nearly 10,000 households. Experts called it the largest and most scientific study of the Iraqi death toll since the war began.

Its bottom line is far lower than the 600,000 deaths reported in an earlier study but higher than numbers from other groups tracking the count.

The new estimate covers a period from the start of the war in March 2003 through June 2006.