The Lancet report that the ‘liberation’ of Iraq has led to the deaths of 100,000 people was denied by Tony Blair. He said that “The Iraqi ministry of health have put out figures for the six months up to October of just over 3,000 deaths, but that includes people who are either terrorists or insurgents themselves killed or alternatively people who are the victims of terrorist attack.” The Prime Minister is wriggling out of the fact that those people would still be alive now if there had been no invasion. He is also suggesting that some human lives are worth more than others and that some deaths are not undesirable.
According to an article in the Economist he is also just plain wrong. The Economist says that it is reasonable to say that 60,000 have been killed violently since the invasion, it also says that the total of confirmed deaths in press reports is 15,000. Blair must know that the current regime in Iraq has a real interest in under-reporting the casualty figures. He doesn’t seem to have lost his habit of believing even the most suspect evidence when it suits him.