Most scientific estimates are in the range of half a million to a million, with the one outlier being the study conducted by the Iraqi Health Ministry itself. One possible explanation for that is that people might have been afraid to speak to representatives of the ministry, given that it was controlled by a Shiite politician who had connections to militias.

> Most scientific estimates are in the range of half a million to a million, with the one outlier being the study conducted by the Iraqi Health Ministry itself.

I'm not sure what studies were not scientific and which were, but I don't get that at all from the wiki section on total Iraqi causalities.[1] Ignoring lower US military estimates accused of undercounting, about half of estimates are below 200K and about half above 250K. And again, all of the studies are disputed with those in the higher range taking the most criticism towards methods and bias, such as IBC and the Lancet studies. The lower estimates, which seem to be missing deaths that were not immediate, are by Swiss Developmental Studies, Iraqiyun, Iraqi Heath Minister, IFHS, and the higher estimates with a large range variance between 250K-1M+ are by IBC, Lancet, ORB, and PLOS Medicine, which seem to be including homicides, suicides and car accidents. I don't really understand why any group would intentionally underestimate or intentionally inflate casualty estimates, but some, most or all obviously did. Some studies, like D3, seem to suggest fully half the Iraqi population was injured or killed. This all seems bizarre, that estimates are so widely varied and criticized, considering at the time it was the most covered war by journalists in history. The surreal feeling at the time was that it was all televised. It seems unlikely most if any were infiltrated by US covert intelligence white washers, but I can't fathom any overarching reason for such wide variance.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Tot...

The scientific studies are the ones based on survey methods, which were published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

The Iraqiyun estimate was not published and didn't explain its methodology. The Iraq Body Count isn't a scientific survey - it keeps track of deaths that are reported in the media. It's highly unlikely that every (or even most) deaths that occur in a war in a country like Iraq (recall how dangerous Iraq was at the height of the war) will be recorded in the media.

That leaves the ILCS, the two Lancet studies, the PLOS study, and the Iraqi Health Ministry's estimate.

The ILCS was carried out only a year into the war, before the height of the violence (which was 2006). It was not focused on determining deaths - the question about deaths was only one of many questions asked. Nevertheless, this study found a far higher death toll than IBC.

The Iraqi Health Ministry was run by one of the parties to the civil war, so it's questionable whether people would have felt are liberty to speak freely to the Ministry's workers, especially about something as sensitive (and potentially incriminating) as deaths in the family.

The first Lancet study was also carried out relatively early in the war, but found a much higher death toll than IBC. The 2nd Lancet study was carried out in 2006, after violence had exploded, and found a number of several hundred thousand, but with large error bars. The later PLOS study was much larger and had smaller error bars, and found a number around half a million.

> the most covered war by journalists in history. The surreal feeling at the time was that it was all televised. It seems unlikely most if any were infiltrated by US covert intelligence white washers, but I can't fathom any overarching reason for such wide variance.

I don't know how Iraq compares to other wars in terms of coverage, but most of the country was not well covered. Western journalists were heavily concentrated in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, or embedded in US military units. During the height of the violence, it was extremely dangerous to wander around Iraq as a foreigner. Every study (even the one by the Iraqi Health Ministry) found death tolls far in excess of what IBC documented from media reports.

Maddening. Rant is about all I can do with this. A small goon mob of GoP operatives dressed in blazers intimidating Florida election officials in Nov. of 2000 stops the vote recount leading to a genuine stolen Presidential election, which leads to exceptional political shenanigans to leverage pain and anguish with false intelligence and lies to justify a war killing hundreds of thousands for the sole purposes of remaining in power in order to keep the richest or the rich the richest of the rich. The Republican Party should be banned, and if everyone would just vote in their personal economic interests and stop being distracted by irrelevant issues, we'd never see anything like this or Trump again. Nearly everyone, excepting the uber rich, the multi-hundred millionaires and billionaires, would be economically better off with a long-sustained liberal government, and the uber rich certainly wouldn't be slumming it. Anyone voting Republican without an income of at least $350K/yr is sinking their own tiny boat and taking everyone down with them, except, of course, the uber rich. They should put a cap on wealth of $150M and appropriate all wealth gains above that for even distribution. Who has a problem with this? How many are going to bitch about only being able to have $150M? Seriously, billionaires and half-billionaires really, legitimately and provably, are the source of all problems, which fundamentally are economic problems, that inevitably make their way down to everyone else. End rant... and fallacious but, I think, still somewhat compelling argument.