[iraq] 600 000 death estimate - accurate or flawed

Researchers, criticised for their death estimates two years ago, say that more than 600,000 Iraqis have suffered violent deaths since 2003. "This clearly is a much higher number than many people have been thinking about," said Gilbert Burnham, lead author and professor at Johns Hopkins University. "It shows the violence has spread across the country." Most deaths reported in the study are military-aged men but he said it was impossible to differentiate between civilians, insurgents and Iraqi security force members. Human Rights Watch's Middle East division executive director, Sarah Leah Whitson, said she had no reason to question the estimate but Michael O'Hanlon, a Brookings scholar who compiles civilian casualty estimates, said the survey method was flawed. "The study is so far off they should not have published it. It is irresponsible," he said. "Their numbers are out of whack with every other estimate." The Johns Hopkins estimate is based on a survey of 1849 randomly selected households in Iraq.