An extensive new study into Iraq’s war deaths makes that storyline look a bit different. The study, conducted by four American and Canadian universities along with the Iraqi Ministry of Health, estimates that 461,000 Iraqi deaths can be attributed to the war, of which about two-thirds were direct violence; the other third is from indirect causes such as breakdowns of health-care systems that are attributable to the war. Those numbers are much higher than earlier estimated. Worse, they tick back up in the final years of the war – when things were supposedly getting better.

The results, charted above, show the number of war-related Iraqi deaths over time. It’s grim – and a direct challenge to our understanding of the war as having improved after 2007… MORE