This mission is called Operation New Dawn (OND). Figure 1 charts the deaths of civilians and police and security forces as reported by the Iraq Ministry of Health. The Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (ICCC) is another nonprofit group that, like the IBC, tracks Iraqi civilian and Iraqi security forces deaths using media reports of deaths. Earlier studies include "the Lancet study." In 2007, a British firm, Opinion Research Business (ORB), conducted a survey in Iraq in which it asked 2,411 Iraqis, "How many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (i.e., as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age)? Finally, the Brookings Institution has used numbers from the following sources to develop its own composite estimate for Iraqi civilians, police, and security forces who have died by violence: the U.N. Human Rights Report , the Iraq Body Count, the U.S. Central Command's General David Petraeus's congressional testimony given on September 10-11, 2007, Iraqi government sources, and other sources. Table 4 provides Iraqi civilian, security forces, and police officers casualty estimates from nongovernmental sources. These estimates are based on varying time periods and have been created using differing methodologies, and therefore readers should exercise caution when using and comparing these statistics.
This report presents U.S. military casualties in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation New Dawn (OND) as well as governmental and nongovernmental estimates of Iraqi civilian, police, and security forces casualties.
For several years, there were few estimates from any national or international government source regarding Iraqi civilian, police, and security forces casualties. Now, however, United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) is reporting civilian casualty estimates. In addition, several Iraqi ministries have released monthly or total casualty statistics.
Nongovernmental sources also have released various estimates of Iraqi civilian, police, and security forces casualties. This report includes estimates from Iraq Body Count (IBC), the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (ICCC), Iraq Family Health Survey (IFHS), the most recent study published in the Lancet, the Brookings Institution, and the British survey firm, Opinion Research Business (ORB).
Because the estimates of Iraqi casualties contained in this report are based on varying time periods and have been created using differing methodologies, readers should exercise caution when using them and should look to them as guideposts rather than as statements of fact.
This report will be updated as needed.