How Many Iraqis Killed?

A new survey by the Iraqi government and the World Health Organization concludes that around 150,000 Iraqis were killed in the three years following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This number seems far more reasonable than the 600,000 + figure that was floated by a group from Johns Hopkins, just in time for the off-year elections in 2006.
Details on the current survey will appear later this month in the New England Journal of Medicine. Reports released so far do not break down violent deaths among the various causes. It seems obvious, however, that a large proportion of those killed were victims of terrorism–I would so classify many of those who fell victim to “sectarian violence”–and many of the others were the terrorists themselves.
Some liberals seem to take grim satisfaction from this sort of statistic, but it’s hard to see why. What these casualty figures reveal is the fanatically homicidal nature of our enemies. They would be killing as many people here in the United States, and more, if they could.
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