Order Code RS22537
November 22, 2006
CRS Report for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
Iraqi Civilian Deaths Estimates
Hannah Fischer
Information Research Specialist
Knowledge Services Group
Summary
This report presents various governmental and nongovernmental estimates of Iraqi
civilian fatalities. The Department of Defense (DOD) regularly updates total U.S.
military death and wounded statistics from Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), as reflected
in CRS Report RS21578, Iraq: Summary of U.S. Casualties. However, no Iraqi or U.S.
government office regularly releases statistics on Iraqi civilian deaths. Statistics on
these topics are sometimes available through alternative sources, such as nonprofit
organizations, or through statements made by officials to the press. No authoritative
source has released either an estimate of Iraqi civilians who have been wounded or an
estimate of total Iraqi casualties (dead and wounded). Because these estimates are based
on varying time periods and have been created using differing methodologies, readers
should exercise caution when using these statistics and should look on them as
guideposts rather than as statements of historical fact. See also CRS Report RS22532,
Iraqi Police and Security Forces Casualty Estimates. This report will be updated as
needed.
The United Nations Assistance
Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and the
United States Department of Defense
(DOD) have recently released reports that
include sections on Iraqi civilian
casualties. In the latest Human Rights
Report
, the UNAMI estimated that 3,709
Iraqi civilians were killed in October
2006 (the highest number of any month
so far in the conflict) and 3,345 Iraqi
Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress

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civilians were killed in September 2006.1 These figures represent a tally of two civilian
death counts: one from the Iraq Ministry of Health, which records deaths reported by
hospitals; and one from the Medico-Legal Institute (MLI) in Baghdad, which reports the
number of unidentified bodies it receives.2 The June 30, 2006 version of the UNAMI
report estimated that the combined count of civilian casualties from January 2006 to June
2006 was 14,228 and commented that:
On 25 June, the [Iraqi] Ministry of Health publicly acknowledged information stating
that since 2003 at least 50,000 persons have been killed violently. The Baghdad
morgue reportedly received 30,204 bodies from 2003 to mid-2006. Deaths numbering
18,933 occurred from “military clashes” and “terrorist attacks” between 5 April 2004
and 1 June 2006. The Ministry further indicated that the number of deaths is probably
underreported.3
UNAMI has also made estimates of civilian casualties in Baghdad, a topic that has
drawn nearly as much attention as estimates of civilian casualties in the country as a
whole. In a recent article in the Washington Post, Gianni Magazzeni, chief of UNAMI’s
Human Rights Office, asserted that there had been 1,536 violent deaths in Baghdad in
August 2006, as reported by the Baghdad morgue.4 The UNAMI July 1 - August 31
human rights report indicated that “In Baghdad the total [number] of persons killed in July
and August was 5,106 ... In August there was a decline in the overall number of killed and
wounded probably due to a reduction in the number of casualties in Baghdad. Such
reduction was somehow offset by increases in other Governorates, most notably Diyala
and Mosul.”5
DOD has not released a composite estimate of Iraqi civilian deaths during Operation
Iraqi Freedom. However, it has released a bar chart of the average daily Iraqi casualties
and average daily coalition casualties. The chart does not distinguish between deaths and
wounded, nor does it distinguish between civilians and security forces (or ISF).6
1 Alexander G. Higgins, “U.N. says 3,709 Iraqi Civilians Killed in October, a New Monthly
High,” Associated Press, November 22, 2006. This bimonthly report has yet to be posted online;
earlier Human Rights reports can be found at the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq
website, at [http://tinyurl.com/ycg9rf]. All UN figures exclude casualty estimates from the
Region of Kurdistan.
2 Nick Wadhams, “Iraq civilian toll spikes to nearly 6,000,” Associated Press, July 19, 2006.
3 United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, Human Rights Report: 1 May - 30 June 2006, at
[http://tinyurl.com/ml6c8].
4 Ellen Knickmeyer, “Body Count in Baghdad Nearly Triples,” Washington Post, Sept. 8, 2006,
p. A12.
5 United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, Human Rights Report: 1 July - 31 August 2006, at
[http://tinyurl.com/ycg9rf], p. 3.
6 U.S. Department of Defense, Multi-National Corps-Iraq, Measuring Stability and Security in
Iraq: August 2006 Report to Congress in Accordance with the Department of Defense
A p p r o p r i a t i o n s A c t 2 0 0 6 ( S e c t i o n 9 0 1 0 )
, A u g u s t 2 0 0 6 , a t
[http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/Security-Stabilty-ReportAug29r1.pdf].


CRS-3
Average Daily Casualties — Iraqi (incl. ISF) and Coalition
April 1, 2004 — August 11, 2006
Source: DOD, Derived from Multi-National Corps - Iraq, [http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/
Security-Stabilty-ReportAug29r1.pdf]. Casualty data on this [chart] reflect updated data for each period and
are derived from unverified initial reports submitted by Coalition elements responding to an incident; the
inconclusivity of these numbers constrains them to be used for comparative purposes only.
Other Iraqi or U.S. government officials have also made estimates of Iraqi civilian
casualties, often in conversations with the media. In a question and answer period after
a speech in December 2005, President George W. Bush gave an estimate of civilian
deaths, stating “30,000 [Iraqi civilians], more or less, have died as a result of the initial
incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis [during Operation Iraqi Freedom].”7
After the speech, however, aides said that Bush’s statement was not an official
government estimate but a reflection of figures in news media reports.8
In the midst of the rising civilian death toll, the head of the Multi-National Corps-
Iraq, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, said in an interview with Knight Ridder that “escalation of
force” incidents have gone down in a comparison between July of last year to July of this
year. “Escalation of force” incidents typically involve a U.S. soldier giving a verbal
warning or hand signal to a driver approaching a checkpoint or convoy. The situation
escalates if the driver fails to stop, with the soldier firing a warning shot and then shooting
to kill.9 The same article reported that an anonymous military official said that there had
been 3,000 “escalation of force” incidents from July 2005 to December 31, 2005, and that
7 White House News release, “President Discusses War on Terror and Upcoming Iraqi Elections,”
Dec. 12, 2005, at [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051212-4.html].
8 Adam Harvey, “Bush says civilian toll in Iraq 30,000,” The Advertiser, Dec. 14, 2005, p. 42.
9 Nancy A. Youssef, “U.S. strives to curb Iraqi deaths; Stung by an increasingly hostile populace,
the U.S. military has launched a major campaign to lessen the number of civilian deaths in
Iraq,”Buffalo News (New York), June 22, 2006, p. A1.

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16% of the incidents led to a civilian being killed or injured. However, according to this
source, from January 1, 2006, to May 31, 2006, 1,700 such incidents were reported and
12% led to a civilian being killed or injured.10
In addition to U.S. and government sources, the media have often cited a number of
not-for-profit or scholarly sources that attempt to track civilian deaths. The British
medical journal, The Lancet, has published two articles by researchers looking into
civilian casualties. The first, “Mortality Before and After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq:
Cluster Sample Survey,” used a cluster sample survey of households in Iraq to develop
an estimate of 8,000 to 194,000 civilian casualties due to violent deaths since the start of
the war.11 This report has come under some criticism for its methodology, with an
argument that some of the casualties could have resulted from the long-term negative
health effects of the Saddam Hussein era. In addition, British Foreign Minister Straw has
written a formal Ministerial Response rejecting the findings of the Lancet report on the
grounds that the data analyzed were inaccurate.12
The second article, “Mortality After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: A Cross-Sectional
Cluster Sample Survey,”13 increased the number of clusters surveyed from 33 to 47
clusters and reported an estimate of between 426,369 and 793,663 Iraqi civilian deaths
from violent causes since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This article, too, has
sparked some controversy. Robert Blendon, director of the Harvard Program on Public
Opinion and Health and Social Policy, defended the study in an interview with the New
York Times
, saying that interviewing urban dwellers chosen at random was “the best of
what you can expect in a war zone.”14 However, Stephen Moore, a consultant for Gorton
Moore International, objected more strongly to the methods used by the researchers,
commenting in the Wall Street Journal that the Lancet article lacked some of the
hallmarks of good research: a small margin of error, a record of the demographics of
respondents (so that one can be sure one has captured a fair representation of an entire
population), and a large number of cluster points.15
In addition to government and academic sources, a number of nonprofit groups have
also released unofficial estimates of Iraqi civilian casualties. The Iraq Body Count (IBC)
is one source often cited by the media; it bases its online casualty estimates on media
reports of casualties, some of which may involve security forces as well as civilians. As
of November 9, 2006, the IBC estimated that between 46,863 and 51,968 civilians had
10 Ibid.
11 Les Roberts, Ridyah Lafta, Richard Garfield et al., “Mortality Before and After the 2003
Invasion of Iraq: Cluster Sample Survey,” The Lancet, Oct. 29, 2004, 364 (9448): 1857-64.
12 Jack Straw, Written U.K. Ministerial Statement Responding to a Lancet Study on Iraqi
Casualty Numbers, Nov. 16, 2004, at [http://tinyurl.com/3hv8j].
13 Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy et al., “Mortality After the 2003 Invasion of
Iraq: A Cross-Sectional Cluster Sample Survey,” The Lancet, Oct. 21, 2006 368(9545):1421-
1429.
14 Sabrina Tavernise and Donald G. McNeil, Jr., “Iraqi Dead May Total 600,000, Study Says.”
New York Times, Oct 11, 2006, p. A16.
15 Steven E. Moore, “655,000 War Dead?” Wall Street Journal, Oct 18, 2006, p. A.20.

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died as a result of military action.16 The IBC documents each of the casualties it records
with a media source and, because it provides a minimum and a maximum estimate, its
numbers are regarded by some as fairly authoritative.
The Brookings Institution has used modified numbers from the UN human rights
report and Iraq Body count to develop its own estimate for Iraqi civilians who have died
by violence. It estimates that 90 percent of the deaths reported in the UN human rights
report happened as a result of violence, and they use this number as an estimate of January
2006 to July 2006 Iraqi civilian deaths due to violence. To expand their dates to include
May 2003 to December 2005, they include 1.75 times the Iraq Body Count total (they do
not specify the minimum or maximum total) to reflect “the fact that estimates for civilian
casualties from the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior were 75 percent higher than those of our
Iraq Body Count-based estimate over the aggregate December 2003 - May 2005 period.”17
By using this method, the Brookings Institution estimates that between May 2003 and
August 31, 2006, 63,000 Iraqi civilians have died due to violence.
Finally, the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (ICCC) has been tracking U.S. and
coalition casualties since the beginning of the war and has recently begun tracking civilian
casualties as well using an IBC-like method of posting media reports of deaths. ICCC,
like IBC, is prone to the kind of errors likely when using media reports for data: some
deaths may not be reported in the media, while other deaths may be reported more than
once. Nonetheless, both sources may be useful for different kinds of inquiries. The ICCC
separates police and soldier deaths from civilian deaths and thus may be useful in tracking
the two populations separately. The ICCC estimates that there were 19,179 civilian
deaths from April 28, 2005 (Shiite-led government announced) through November 9
2006, and 5,719 police and security force deaths from June 2003 through November 9,
2006.18
16 Iraq Body Count at [http://www.iraqbodycount.net]. IBC is a nongovernmental organization
managed by researchers and volunteers.
17 Brookings Institution, Iraq Index: Tracking Reconstruction and Security in Post-Saddam Iraq,
Sept. 7, 2006, at [http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf], p. 10.
18 Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, at [http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx]. ICCC is a
nongovernmental organization managed by researchers and volunteers.