There are almost certainly far fewer than a million Iraqi deaths (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200804/war-statistics), but after this knowledge (like the knowledge that "only" four or five million Jews were killed in the Holocaust), what forgiveness? It is a travesty that the American media trumpet every single American death, and one must turn to the BBC or al-Jazeera to see something like the full scale of the horrorshow the United States has made of Mesopotamia. Of course the deaths of American soldiers matter, especially given the backdoor draft that swells our armed forces with the disadvantaged, but the complacency about the mass slaughter we have visited upon a country we invaded is nearly as criminal as the war itself. Whether 150,000 Iraqis or more have died because of our actions (and whether they have been killed by our forces or by the insurgency and internecine strife is immaterial to our responsibility), we should be ashamed of ourselves. If a real debate about the war were allowed to take place in this nation, the only sensible question would be just how much we owe Iraq in reparations, and what form it should take.

Thanks for this, Daisy.

Michael,

You're right that whether or not the number is 150,000 or 1,000,000 the American invasion and occupation of Iraq is still an atrocity of unbearable proportions. I'm curious, though, about your certainty as to numbers for violent deaths. I understand being skeptical about the Lancet report numbers, but the NEJM study has some rather severe methodological flaws: 1) it was conducted by members of the Iraqi government, to whom Iraqis might be hesitant to report honestly and 2) more seriously, it didn't poll most areas in Anbar province, where it was most dangerous to travel and where, by the same logic, deaths would be highest. Instead, they adjusted the numbers using Iraq Body Count, which only tallies media-reported deaths (and, of course, there are no media in Anbar for the same reason there are no Iraqi health workers there). Given the extent of bombing in Anbar, I would be quite hesitant to attribute any accuracy to the NEJM number.