International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and Physicians for Global Survival (PGS) (2015): “Executive Summary. This investigation come to the conclusion that the war has, directly or indirectly, killed [in 2011-2013] around 1 million people in Iraq, 220,000 in Afghanistan and 80,000 in Pakistan i.e. a total of 1.3 million. Not included in this figure are further war zones such a Yemen. The figure is approximately 10 times greater than that of which the public, experts and decision –makers are aware of [sic] and propagated by the media and major NGOs. And this is only a conservative estimate. The total number of deaths in the three countries named above could also be in excess of 2 million, whereas a figure below 1 million is extremely unlikely” (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and Physicians for Global Survival (PGS), “Body Count. Casualty figures after 10 years of the “War on Terror” Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan”, March 2015: http://www.psr.org/assets/pdfs/body-count.pdf ).
[Editor’s note: “Body Count” makes the absurd claim of 224,000 total violent Iraqi deaths including combatants since the 2003 invasion, this being based on media reports, an approach that has been shown to be severely flawed (see “Iraq Body Count”: https://www.iraqbodycount.org/ ). The Physicians’ Report (above) estimates 1 million Iraqi deaths from violence or war-imposed deprivation in the period 2011-2011. The eminent US Just Foreign Policy estimates from the UK ORB polling organization and from polling by US medical epidemiologists published in The Lancet that 1.5 million Iraqis have died due to the US invasion and comments: “The number is shocking and sobering. It is at least 10 times greater than most estimates cited in the US media, yet it is based on a scientific study of violent Iraqi deaths caused by the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003” (noting that top US medical epidemiologists in their paper The Lancet estimated that 90% of the deaths found were violent) (see Just Foreign Policy, “Iraq Deaths”: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq ).
Using data from the UN Population Division I have made an upper estimate of 2003-2011 Iraqi avoidable deaths from deprivation totalling 1.2 million, this leading to an estimate of 2.7 million Iraqi deaths from violence (1.5 million) or from war-imposed conditions as determined from differential pre- and post-invasion mortality data (1.2 million) in the period 2003-2011, and assuming that these 2 data sets (i.e. “deaths from violence” and “deaths from war-imposed conditions ”) do not overlap if violently killed people do not make it to hospitals etc for “official counting” – indeed the gross under-estimate of Iraqi violent deaths by “Iraq Body Count” based on “official counting” validates my approach (see “Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ ). A related approach estimates 5.6 million Afghan deaths from violence (1.4 million) or war-imposed deprivation (4.2 million) (see “Afghan Holocaust Afghan Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/ and “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ ).
Crucially, while the Physicians ’ Report estimates “deaths from war-related conditions” as determined from differential immediately pre- and post-invasion mortality data, I assume that the historical pre-invasion trend of massive decreases in mortality in Iraq (and Syria) should have continued and indeed assume that the Iraqi mortality rate post-1990 could and should have attained the base-line rate for high birth-rate impoverished countries of about 4 deaths per 1,000 of population per year and hence given an avoidable death rate of zero (0) but for war-imposed conditions. In other words, the invasion of Iraq not only yielded violent deaths and increased avoidable deaths relative to the pre-invasion year, it also blocked a quite achievable rapid decline to zero avoidable deaths per annum.
Avoidable death, avoidable mortality, excess death, excess mortality, premature death, untimely death, death that should not have happened) is the difference between the observed deaths in a country and the deaths expected for a peaceful, decently governed country with the same demographics (i.e. the same birth rate and age distribution Thus, for example, in 2015 GDP per capita is abut $6,000 for both Cuba and China and about $15,000 for both Iraq and Libya, but while there are zero (0) annual avoidable deaths in Cuba and China, annual avoidable deaths in war-devastated Iraq (population 36.4 million) and Syria (population 6.3 million) total 47,000 and 8,000, respectively (the latter 2 examples assuming an expected annual baseline death rate of about 4 deaths per 1,000 of population per year in these 2 high birth-rate and impoverished countries (see Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, that includes an avoidable mortality-related history of every country since Neolithic times and is now available for free perusal on he web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/body-count-global-avoidable-mortality_05.html ; Gideon Polya,”Appalling Paris Atrocity – Non-State Terrorist Blowback For US Alliance And French State Terrorism Atrocities”, Countercurrents, 16 November, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya161115.htm ; and Gideon Polya, "Horrendous US state terrorism and French state terrorism led to the appalling non-state terrorist Paris atrocity", Gideon Polya Writing, 2015-11-18 : https://sites.google.com/site/gideonpolyawriting/2015-11-18 ) .
Finally, the Physicians’ Report estimate of 80,000 Pakistani war-related deaths in 2001-2011 is about 100 times lower than the 6.5 million Pakistani avoidable deaths from deprivation in the period October 2001- October 2011 as estimated using UN data (UN Population Division 2015 Revision of World Population Prospects: http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/ ) and assuming a base-line mortality rate for this high birth rate, impoverished country of 4 deaths per 1,000 births per year for zero avoidable mortality that could and should have been attained in Pakistan in 2011 but for US-driven militarism, terrorism and war (see Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, that includes an avoidable mortality-related history of every country since Neolithic times and is now available for free perusal on he web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/body-count-global-avoidable-mortality_05.html ). Soap, insecticide-impregnated mosquito netting, antibiotics, immunization, basic preventative medicine, maternal education and good primary health care are vastly cheaper than drones, bombs, militarization, war and nuclear weapons, as well illustrated by the marvellous example of US sanctions-impoverished but well-governed Cuba.]