HUGE EGO HEWITT

This afternoon, one of the caller's to Hewitt's show brought up the mortality study published in The Lancet that estimated 655,000 Iraqis had died because of the war. Hewitt said the study had been "debunked" but he is wrong again.


Iraqi deaths survey 'was robust'
By Owen Bennett-Jones
BBC World Service
Monday, 26 March 2007, 15:53 GMT 16:53 UK

The British government was advised against publicly criticising a report estimating that 655,000 Iraqis had died due to the war, the BBC has learnt. ...the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the survey's methods were "close to best practice" and the study design was "robust".

Another expert agreed the method was "tried and tested".

...a memo by the MoD's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Roy Anderson, on 13 October, states: "The study design is robust and employs methods that are regarded as close to "best practice" in this area, given the difficulties of data collection and verification in the present circumstances in Iraq."

The reply from another official is: "We do not accept the figures quoted in the Lancet survey as accurate. " In the same e-mail the official later writes: "However, the survey methodology used here cannot be rubbished, it is a tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones."

If the Lancet survey is right, then 2.5% of the Iraqi population - an average of more than 500 people a day - have been killed since the start of the war.

The BBC World Service made a Freedom of Information Request on 28 November 2006. The information was released on 14 March 2007.