Iraq war-related deaths near 500,000

KIRKUK, Iraq: A study has put the death toll in war-torn Iraq at nearly half a million since the US-led 2003 invasion.
That figure is far higher than the nearly 115,000 violent civilian deaths reported by the British-based group Iraq Body Count, which bases its tally on media reports, hospital and morgue records, and official and non-governmental accounts.
The new study, published in the US and conducted in cooperation with the Iraqi Ministry of Health, covers not only violent deaths but other avoidable deaths linked to the invasion, insurgencies and subsequent social breakdown.
It differs from some previous counts by spanning a longer period of time and by using randomized surveys of households across Iraq to project a nationwide death toll from 2003 to mid-2011.
Violence caused most of the deaths, but about a third were indirectly linked to the war, and these deaths have been left out of previous counts, said lead author Amy Hagopian, a public health researcher at the University of Washington.
Those included situations when a pregnant woman encountered difficult labor but could not leave the house due to fighting, or when a person drank contaminated water, or when a patient could not get treated at a hospital because staff was overwhelmed with war casualties.
“I think it is important that people understand the consequences of launching wars on public health, on how people live. This country is forever changed,” Hagopian told AFP.
“We ask God to keep the ghost of sectarian strife... and civil war, on which those who sold their soul to the devil are insisting, away from our country,” Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki said in pre-recorded remarks broadcast on Tuesday.
Secure targets such as prisons have been struck in recent months, along with cafés, markets, mosques, football fields, weddings and funerals.
Attacks on both Sunni and Shiite gatherings have raised fears of a relapse into the intense sectarian bloodshed that killed tens of thousands of people in 2006-2007.
Analysts say the Shiite-led government’s failure to address the grievances of Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority — which complains of being excluded from government jobs and senior posts and of abuses by security forces — has driven the surge in unrest.
Violence worsened sharply after security forces stormed a Sunni anti-government protest camp in northern Iraq on April 23, sparking clashes in which dozens died.
And while the authorities have made some concessions aimed at placating anti-government protesters and Sunnis in general, such as freeing prisoners and raising the salaries of Sunni anti-Al-Qaeda fighters, underlying issues remain unaddressed.
The government has enacted new security measures, stepped up executions and carried out wide-ranging operations against militants for more than two months, but has so far failed to curb the violence.