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The Iraq Body Count project (IBC) is an attempt to record civilian deaths resulting from the 2003 invasion of Iraq and occupation. Civilian deaths counted are those attributable to insurgent or military action in Iraq, and also to increased criminal violence. This refers to excess civilian deaths caused by criminal action resulting from the breakdown in law and order which followed the coalition invasion. The sources for the data are reports in English-language media. The IBC states that its count is low due to its strict reliance on media reports. The group is staffed by volunteers consisting mainly of academics and activists based in the UK and the USA. The project was founded by John Sloboda and Hamit Dardagan.

The project's aim

The IBC overview page states: "This is an ongoing human security project which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq that have resulted from the 2003 military intervention by the USA and its allies. The count includes civilian deaths caused by coalition military action and by military or paramilitary responses to the coalition presence (e.g. insurgent and terrorist attacks). It also includes excess civilian deaths caused by criminal action resulting from the breakdown in law and order which followed the coalition invasion."

The project quotes the top US general in Iraq, Tommy Franks, as saying "We don't do body counts ". The quotation was from a discussion of the Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan and was referring to counts of enemy soldiers killed, in the context of using enemy body counts as a measure of military success. The website, which omits the context of the quote, could be said to conflate the meaning of "enemy body count" with "civilian deaths caused" and to imply that the US is not interested in the number of civilian deaths its military operations cause. On the other hand, the US army in general doesn't provide detailed statistical information about civilians killed and harmed by their actions, so one could perhaps argue that the quote, though not in context, is true even when interpreted out of context and contrary to its probable intended meaning.

Biographical information of group members is shown on the group's website

Method

The IBC overview page states: "Casualty figures are derived from a comprehensive survey of online media reports from recognized sources. Where these sources report differing figures, the range (a minimum and a maximum) are given. This method is also used to deal with any residual uncertainty about the civilian or non-combatant status of the dead. All results are independently reviewed and error-checked by at least three members of the Iraq Body Count project team before publication."

The project is staffed by volunteers who attempt to measure the number of violent civilian deaths resulting from the Iraq war of 2003 by sampling news stories to extract minimum and maximum numbers of civilian casualties. Each incident reported at least by two independent news sources is included in the Iraq Body Count database.

IBC is purely a civilian count. IBC defines civilian to exclude Iraqi soldiers, insurgents, suicide bombers or any others directly engaged in war-related violence. A "min" and "max" figure are used where reports differ on the numbers killed, or where the civilian status of the dead is uncertain.

IBC is not an "estimate" of total civilian deaths based on projections or other forms of extrapolation. It is a compilation of documented deaths, as reported by English-language media worldwide. See the sources section farther down for more info on the media and their sources.

Some have suggested bias of sources could affect the count. If a number is quoted from a pro-Iraqi source, and the Allies fail to give a sufficiently specific alternate number, the pro-Iraqi figure is entered into IBC's database as both a maximum and a minimum. The same works vice versa. The project argues that these potential over- and undercounts by different media sources would tend to balance out.

IBC's online database shows the newspaper, magazine or website where each number is reported, and the date on which it was reported. However, this has been criticized as insufficient because it typically does not list the original sources for the information: that is, the NGO, journalist or government responsible for the number presented. Hence, any inherent bias due to the lack of reliable reports from independent or Allied sources is not readily available to the reader.

Undercounting

In its "Quick-FAQ" the IBC states: "It is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media. That is the sad nature of war."

In a November 7, 2004 press release concerning the October 2004 Lancet study the IBC states: "We have always been quite explicit that our own total is certain to be an underestimate of the true position, because of gaps in reporting or recording".

One of the sources used by the media are morgues. Only the central Baghdad area morgue has released figures consistently. While that is the largest morgue in Iraq and in the most consistently violent area, the absence of comprehensive morgue figures elsewhere leads to undercounting. IBC makes it clear that, due to these issues, its count will almost certainly be below the full toll in its 'Quick FAQ' on its homepage.

Quote from an IBC note : "The Iraq Body Count (IBC) estimate for x350, like that for x334, was made possible by examination of the detailed data supplied to the Associated Press (AP) by the morgues surveyed in AP's 23rd May 2004 survey of Iraqi morgues."

That May 23, 2004 Associated Press article points out the lack of morgue data from many areas of Iraq. Also, it states: "The figure does not include most people killed in big terrorist bombings, Hassan said. The cause of death in such cases is obvious so bodies are usually not taken to the morgue, but given directly to victims' families. Also, the bodies of killed fighters from groups like the al-Mahdi Army are rarely taken to morgues."

A July 28, 2004 article by The Independent reports that "some families bury their dead without notifying the authorities."

An April 2005 article by The Independent reports:

"A week before she was killed by a suicide bomber, humanitarian worker Marla Ruzicka forced military commanders to admit they did keep records of Iraqi civilians killed by US forces. ... in an essay Ms Ruzicka wrote a week before her death on Saturday and published yesterday, the 28-year-old revealed that a Brigadier General told her it was 'standard operating procedure' for US troops to file a report when they shoot a non-combatant. She obtained figures for the number of civilians killed in Baghdad between 28 February and 5 April , and discovered that 29 had been killed in firefights involving US forces and insurgents. This was four times the number of Iraqi police killed."

A June 25, 2006 Los Angeles Times article reports: "At least 50,000 Iraqis have died violently since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion" but add that, "Many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but not counted because of serious lapses in recording deaths. ... The Times attempted to reach a comprehensive figure by obtaining statistics from the Baghdad morgue and the Health Ministry and checking those numbers against a sampling of local health departments for possible undercounts."

An October 19, 2006 Washington Post article reports: "The deaths reported by officials and published in the news media represent only a fraction of the thousands of mutilated bodies winding up in Baghdad's overcrowded morgue each month. ... Bodies are increasingly being dumped in and around Baghdad in fields staked out by individual Shiite militias and Sunni insurgent groups. Iraqi security forces often refuse to go to the dumping grounds, leaving the precise number of bodies in those sites unknown. Civilian deaths, unlike those of American troops, often go unrecorded."

The October 2006 Lancet study states: "Aside from Bosnia, we can find no conflict situation where passive surveillance recorded more than 20% of the deaths measured by population-based methods ." However, IBC had already found and discussed one such case.

The Australian reports in a January 2, 2007 article that the most recent violent death figures compiled by Iraq's Interior Ministry include "people killed in bombings and shootings but not deaths classed as 'criminal'." Also, they "include no deaths among the many civilians wounded in attacks who may die later from wounds. Nor do they include many people kidnapped whose fate remains unknown."

For 2006, a January 2, 2007 Associated Press article reports: "The tabulation by the Iraqi ministries of Health, Defence and Interior, showed that 14,298 civilians, 1,348 police and 627 soldiers had been killed in the violence that raged across the country last year. The Associated Press figure, gleaned from daily news reports from Baghdad, arrived at a total of 13,738 deaths."

In comparison, the IBC states for the week ending Dec. 31, 2006 : "It was a truly violent year, as around 24,000 civilians lost their lives in Iraq. This was a massive rise in violence: 14,000 had been killed in 2005, 10,500 in 2004 and just under 12,000 in 2003 (7,000 of them killed during the actual war, while only 5,000 killed during the ‘peace’ that followed in May 2003). In December 2006 alone around 2,800 civilians were reported killed. This week there were over 560 civilian deaths reported."

Sources

The IBC overview page states: "Our sources include public domain newsgathering agencies with web access. A list of some core sources is given below. ... For a source to be considered acceptable to this project it must comply with the following standards: (1) site updated at least daily; (2) all stories separately archived on the site, with a unique url (see Note 1 below); (3) source widely cited or referenced by other sources; (4) English Language site; (5) fully public (preferably free) web-access. ... Note 1. Some sites remove items after a given time period, change their urls, or place them in archives with inadequate search engines. For this reason it is project policy that urls of sources are NOT published on the iraqbodycount site."

Primary sources used by the media are listed in the 2003 to 2005 IBC report. The sources are followed by the number of deaths reported from that source.

• Mortuaries. 8,913
• Medics. 4,846
• Iraqi officials. 4,376
• Eyewitnesses. 3,794
• Police. 3,588
• Relatives. 2,780
• US-Coalition. 2,423
• Journalists. 1,976
• NGOs. 732
• Friends/Associates. 596
• Other. 196

English-language versus Arabic-language media sources

The IBC report for 2003 to 2005 states: "We have not made use of Arabic or other non English language sources, except where these have been published in English. The reasons are pragmatic. We consider fluency in the language of the published report to be a key requirement for accurate analysis, and English is the only language in which all team members are fluent. It is possible that our count has excluded some victims as a result."

Independent journalist Dahr Jamail spent over eight months reporting from occupied Iraq. In a January 15, 2006 email quoted in a January 26, 2006 MediaLens article he wrote: "Due to their sources and lack of adequate Arab media in them (who do a much better job of reporting Iraqi civilian casualty counts), it is heavily biased towards western outlets which have from the beginning done a dismal (at best) job of reporting on the air war and consequent civ. casualties."

Stephen Soldz, who runs the website "Iraq Occupation and Resistance Report", writes in a February 5, 2006 ZNet article (in reference to the 2003-2005 IBC report): "Given, as indicated in that report, that ten media outlets provided over half the IBC reports and three agencies provided over a third of the reports, there is simply no reason to believe that even a large fraction of Iraqi civilian combat-related deaths are ever reported in the Western media, much less, have the two independent reports necessary to be recorded in the IBC database. Do these few agencies really have enough Iraqi reporters on retainer to cover the country? Are these reporters really able comprehensively to cover deaths in insurgent-held parts of Iraq? How likely is it that two reporters from distinct media outlets are going to be present at a given site where deaths occur? How many of the thousands of US bombings have been investigated by any reporter, Western or Iraqi? Simply to state these questions is to emphasize the fragmentary nature of the reporting that occurs and thus the limitations of the IBC database."

In an April 28, 2006 BBC Newsnight interview the IBC project's co-founder John Sloboda, in response to these and similar arguments, has said: "we have never had over the entire three years, anyone show us an Arabic source that reports deaths that we haven't already got. In three years. In thousands of incidents. There are organisations that translate Arabic reports into English, and we see their data."

Web counters

The IBC overview page states: "Results and totals are continually updated and made immediately available here and on various IBC web counters which may be freely displayed on any website or homepage, where they are automatically updated without further intervention."

Body count

Deaths in the Iraq war.

2003-2005 report.

The website released a report detailing the civilian deaths it had recorded between 2003 and 2005 . The report says the US and its allies were responsible for the largest share (37%) of the 24,865 deaths. The remaining deaths were attributed to anti-occupation forces (9%), crime (36%), and unknown agents (11%).

Who did the killing?

• 37%. US-led forces killed 37% of civilian victims.
• 9%. Anti-occupation forces/insurgents killed 9% of civilian victims.
• 36%. Post-invasion criminal violence accounted for 36% of all deaths.
• 11%. Unknown agents (11%).

Killings by anti-occupation forces, crime and unknown agents have shown a steady rise over the entire period.

Who was killed?

• 24,865 civilians were reported killed in the first two years.
• Men accounted for over 80% of all civilian deaths.
• Baghdad alone recorded almost half of all deaths.

When did they die?

• 30% of civilian deaths occurred during the invasion phase before 1 May 2003.
• Post-invasion, the number of civilians killed was almost twice as high in year two (11,351) as in year one (6,215).

What was the most lethal weaponry?

• Over half (53%) of all civilian deaths involved explosive devices.
• Air strikes caused most (64%) of the explosives deaths.
• Children were disproportionately affected by all explosive devices but most severely by air strikes and unexploded ordnance (including cluster bomblets).

How many were injured?

• At least 42,500 civilians were reported wounded.
• The invasion phase caused 41% of all reported injuries.
• Explosive weaponry caused a higher ratio of injuries to deaths than small arms.
• The highest wounded-to-death ratio incidents occurred during the invasion phase.

Criticism

The project has been the most often cited source on Iraqi deaths, however criticism has been widespread. Some critics have focused on potential bias of sources. Others have raised concerns about the difficulty of distinguishing civilians from combatants. Still others have claimed the project should not be trusted because it is "run by amateurs".

Earlier criticism came from the political right. They claimed that the IBC numbers were an overcount, and that the numbers were suspect due to the antiwar bias of the IBC members. For example; the July 26, 2005 National Review article, "Bad Counts. An unquestioning media."

In early 2005 some began to criticize media and government willingness to quote IBC figures more approvingly than the October 2004 Lancet estimate.

In late 2005 some on the left began criticizing IBC itself, arguing that their figures are far too low due to pro-US media bias and inadequate reporting due to its heavy (though not exclusive) reliance on Western media sources, which has led some of these critics to claim IBC should be called the "Iraq Western Media Body Count". These biases and inadequacies, they claim, mean IBC's count is low by up to a factor of 10, and that it specifically minimizes the proportion of deaths caused by US forces.

A further claim has been that IBC does little or nothing to correct misuse of their figures by public officials or media organizations. It is claimed that the media often misuse IBC's estimate of the total number dead. It is also claimed that the media use the IBC's estimate in order to ignore or downplay the 2004 excess mortality study published in the Lancet Medical Journal, which estimated a far higher figure. Critics of IBC argue that the Lancet study is the most accurate estimate so far and is more reliable than IBC's estimate.

This criticism of IBC has come in main from the media-watchdog website Media Lens. Media Lens published four pieces on what they saw as the "massive bias and gaps" reflected in the IBC database and their totals. David Edwards of MediaLens had articles in other publications too .

Other journalists (Lila Guterman , Andrew Cockburn , John Pilger, George Monbiot , Dahr Jamail , and Stephen Soldz ) have also joined in a variety of criticisms of other media, the government, and sometimes, the IBC.

In April 2006 IBC published a lengthy response to their critics entitled "Speculation is no substitute: a defence of Iraq Body Count" . In their reply, IBC argues that their critics have several key facts wrong. IBC argues that while their estimate is likely to be below the full toll, their critics' errors have led the critics to exaggerate the likely extent of such an undercount. Finally, IBC argues, the available evidence does not support their critics' claims of a pro-US bias infecting the IBC database.

See also

• Casualties of the conflict in Iraq since 2003
• Lancet surveys of mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq
• UNDP Iraq Living Conditions Survey

References

1. ^ Iraq Body Count. Background and overview.
2. "Iraq Body Count". Click "Quick-FAQ" sidebar link to see popup Quick-FAQ.
3. Iraq Body Count. November 7, 2004 press release. "IBC response to the Lancet study estimating '100,000' Iraqi deaths".
4. ^ Template:PDFlink. By Les Roberts, Riyadh Lafta, Richard Garfield, Jamal Khudhairi, and Gilbert Burnham. The Lancet, October 29, 2004. (hosted by zmag.org).
5. http://www.iraqbodycount.net/details/x350_note.php
6. "5,500 Iraqis Killed, Morgue Records Show". By Daniel Cooney. Associated Press. May 23, 2004. Article is here also.
7. "Baghdad is a city that reeks with the stench of the dead". By Robert Fisk. The Independent. July 28, 2004.
8. "Aid Worker Uncovered America's Secret Tally of Iraqi Civilian Deaths". By Andrew Buncombe. The Independent. April 20, 2005.
9. "War's Iraqi Death Toll Tops 50,000". Louise Roug and Doug Smith. Los Angeles Times. June 25, 2006.
10. "One-Day Toll in Iraq Combat Is Highest for U.S. in Months". By Ellen Knickmeyer. Washington Post. Oct. 19, 2006.
11. 2006 Lancet study. PDF file of Lancet article: Template:PDFlink. By Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy, and Les Roberts. The Lancet, October 11, 2006.
12. Supplement to 2006 Lancet study: Template:PDFlink. By Gilbert Burnham, Shannon Doocy, Elizabeth Dzeng, Riyadh Lafta, and Les Roberts.
13. "IBC Compared to ILCS"
14. "Iraq civilian deaths hit new record". By Alastair Macdonald. The Australian. Jan. 2, 2007.
15. "Bruised and battered: Iraqi toll crosses 16000 in ’06". By the Associated Press. The Indian Express. Jan. 3, 2007.
16. "A Week in Iraq - Iraq Body Count". Week ending Dec. 31, 2006.
17. ^ Iraq Body Count. Template:PDFlink.
18. ^ MediaLens. January 26, 2006. "Paved with good intentions - Iraq Body Count - Part 2".
19. ^ Stephen Soldz. "When Promoting Truth Obscures the Truth: More on Iraqi Body Count and Iraqi Deaths". ZNet, February 5, 2006.
20. "Interview transcript - John Sloboda". BBC . April 28, 2006.
21. "Bad Counts. An unquestioning media". By Stephen Spruiell, National Review, July 26, 2005.
22. ^ "Researchers Who Rushed Into Print a Study of Iraqi Civilian Deaths Now Wonder Why It Was Ignored". By Lila Guterman. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Jan. 27, 2005.
23. ^ "Dead Iraqis. Why an Estimate was Ignored". By Lila Guterman, Columbia Journalism Review, March/April 2005.
24. ^ "How Many Iraqis Have Died Since the US Invasion in 2003?". By Andrew Cockburn. CounterPunch. Jan. 9, 2006.
25. MediaLens. January 25, 2006. "Paved with good intentions - Iraq Body Count - Part 1".
26. MediaLens. March 14, 2006. "Iraq Body Count refuses to respond".
27. MediaLens. April 10, 2006. "Iraq Body Count. A shame becoming shameful".
28. David Edwards. ZNet. March 14, 2006. "Iraq Body Count Refuses to Respond".
29. Bringing Out the Dead". By George Monbiot. The Guardian. Nov. 8, 2005.
30. Dahr Jamail and Jeff Pflueger. April 13, 2006. "Learning to Count: the Dead in Iraq"
31. Iraq Body Count. April 2006. "Speculation is no substitute: a defence of Iraq Body Count". By Hamit Dardagan, John Sloboda & Josh Dougherty. A rebuttal to the critiques by Media Lens, Stephen Soldz, Dahr Jamail, etc.

External links

• Website of Iraq Body Count
• Les Roberts, "Do Iraqi Civilian Casualties Matter?", AlterNet, February 14, 2006.
• John Sloboda, Hamit Dardagan, "On the Iraq Body Count project", Presentation based on a lecture given by John Sloboda in February 2006.

• 2003 Iraq conflict