The Iraqi Body Count

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There’s a website called Iraq Body Count, and today it says the number of Iraq civilians who have died since the U.S. invasion began last year is 16,662. Earlier this month, a new study published in the British medical journal The Lancet claimed that the number of Iraqi civilians dead is 100,000.

Ever since General Tommy Franks said “we don’t do body counts” keeping track of the dead has been controversial. But with so much disagreement, people are left to decide on their own where the truth is.

Guests:

Sarah Sewall, Lecturer in Public Policy at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s JFK School of Government

Carl Conetta, Project Director for the Project on Defense Alternatives at the Commonwealth Institute in Cambridge, MA

Andrew Thomson, Medical Officer at United Nations Headquarters in New York, former coordinator of the Mass Grave Exhumations for the War Crimes Tribunal for the Balkans