http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/
The worldwide update of reported civilian deaths in the Iraq war and occupation.
The IRAQ BODY COUNT Database
This is an ongoing human security project which maintains and updates the world's only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq that have resulted from the 2003 military intervention by the USA and its allies. The count includes civilian deaths caused by coalition military action and by military or paramilitary responses to the coalition presence (e.g. insurgent and terrorist attacks). It also includes excess civilian deaths caused by criminal action resulting from the breakdown in law and order which followed the coalition invasion.
Results and totals are continually updated and made immediately available here and on various IBC web counters which may be freely displayed on any website or homepage, where they are automatically updated without further intervention. Casualty figures are derived from a comprehensive survey of online media reports from recognized sources. Where these sources report differing figures, the range (a minimum and a maximum) are given. This method is also used to deal with any residual uncertainty about the civilian or non-combatant status of the dead. All results are independently reviewed and error-checked by at least three members of the Iraq Body Count project team before publication.
THE IRAQ BODY COUNT PROJECT
This is an ongoing human security project which maintains and updates the world's only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq that have resulted from the 2003 military intervention by the USA and its allies. The count includes civilian deaths caused by coalition military action and by military or paramilitary responses to the coalition presence (e.g. insurgent and terrorist attacks).
It also includes excess civilian deaths caused by criminal action resulting from the breakdown in law and order which followed the coalition invasion. Results and totals are continually updated and made immediately available here and on various IBC web counters which may be freely displayed on any website or homepage, where they are automatically updated without further intervention.
Casualty figures are derived from a comprehensive survey of online media reports from recognized sources. Where these sources report differing figures, the range (a minimum and a maximum) are given. This method is also used to deal with any residual uncertainty about the civilian or non-combatant status of the dead. All results are independently reviewed and error-checked by at least three members of the Iraq Body Count project team before publication.
Rationale:
Most actors in conflict, whether state or non-state, have historically displayed little serious interest in documenting and investigating civilian deaths and their causes. Inertia in this respect is also displayed by transnational organisations who could be expected to have particular concern for civilian casualties (such as the Red Cross or appropriate agencies of the United Nations).
Be they men, women or children, civilian casualties, are the most unacceptable consequence of all wars. Each civilian death is a tragedy and should never be regarded as an acceptable cost of achieving political aims. We believe it is a moral and humanitarian duty for each such death to be recorded, publicised, given the weight it deserves, compensated appropriately and, where possible, investigated to establish whether there are grounds for criminal proceedings.
The UN Secretary-General has called the world community to advance a new human-centred approach to conflict, which places the security needs of ordinary people above the interests of regimes or state powers. As a contribution to this effort, the Commission on Human Security (CHS) was founded in 2001 and delivered its final report "Human Security Now" (link) in May 2003.
The duty of ?'recorder' falls particularly heavily on the ordinary citizens of those states whose military forces took the actions which precipitated civilian deaths. In the case of Iraq, this responsibility must be borne predominantly by the citizens of the USA and the UK, even more so since the recent national elections in which the citizenry of both countries freely returned George W Bush (November 2004) and Tony Blair (May 2005) to office, thus endorsing the original policies that led both countries to war without the authority of the UN security council, as well as endorsing later policies which have ensured the continuation of high levels of violent civilian deaths in Iraq to this day.
Our project thus continues to record single-mindedly and on a continually-updated basis one key and immutable index of the fruits of war: the death toll of innocents. The full extent of this has often gone unnoticed until long after a war has ended, if at all. One reason is that reports of incidents where civilians have been killed are scattered in different news sources and spread over time: one or two killed here, a few dozen there, with only major incidents being guaranteed headline coverage. But the smaller numbers quickly add up. It is to these all too easily disregarded victims of violence that Iraq Body Count is dedicated, and we are resolute that they, too, shall have their memorials.
It is accepted that war causes many dire consequences for the civilian population even if they are not directly killed or injured in military strikes. They may suffer long-term injury or illness (as a result, for instance of radiation, post-conflict contact with unexploded munitions, pollution due to spillage of toxic materials). People may suffer deep psychological trauma, miscarriage, bereavement, dislocation, and loss of home and property. Destruction of civil infrastructure and economic systems can have effects which last for generations. These factors undoubtedly cause many further deaths. However, documenting and assigning responsibility for such effects requires long-term "on the ground" resources. Immediate deaths and injuries through the use of weaponry can be pinpointed in place and time, and responsibility straightforwardly attributed to the weapon that caused the death or injury.
Methodology:
Overview
Sources
Data Extraction
Data Storage
Publication of data (including conditions of use)
Limitations
1. Overview
Casualty figures are derived from a comprehensive survey of online media reports and eyewitness accounts. Where these sources report differing figures, the range (a minimum and a maximum) are given. All results are independently reviewed and error-checked by at least two members of the Iraq Body Count project team in addition to the original compiler before publication.
2. Sources
Our sources include public domain newsgathering agencies with web access. A list of some core sources is given below. Further sources will be added provided they meet acceptable project standards (see below).
ABC - ABC News (USA)
AFP - Agence France-Presse
AP - Associated Press
AWST - Aviation Week and Space Technology
Al Jaz - Al Jazeera network
BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation
BG - Boston Globe
Balt. Sun - The Baltimore Sun
CT - Chicago Tribune
CO - Commondreams.org
CSM - Christian Science Monitor
DPA - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
FOX - Fox News
GUA - The Guardian (London)
HRW - Human Rights Watch
HT - Hindustan Times
ICRC - International Committ of the Red Cross
IND - The Independent (London)
IO - Intellnet.org
JT - Jordan Times
LAT - Los Angeles Times
MEN - Middle East Newsline
MEO - Middle East Online
MER - Middle East Report
MH - Miami Herald
NT - Nando Times
NYT - New York Times
Reuters - (includes Reuters Alertnet)
SABC - South African Broadcasting Corporation
SMH - Sydney Morning Herald
Sg.News - The Singapore News
Tel- The Telegraph (London)
Times - The Times (London)
TOI - Times of India
TS - Toronto Star
UPI - United Press International
WNN - World News Network
WP - Washington Post
For a source to be considered acceptable to this project it must comply with the following standards: (1) site updated at least daily; (2) all stories separately archived on the site, with a unique url (see Note 1 below); (3) source widely cited or referenced by other sources; (4) English Language site; (5) fully public (preferably free) web-access.
The project relies on the professional rigour of the approved reporting agencies. It is assumed that any agency that has attained a respected international status operates its own rigorous checks before publishing items (including, where possible, eye-witness and confidential sources). By requiring that two independent agencies publish a report before we are willing to add it to the count, we are premising our own count on the self-correcting nature of the increasingly inter-connected international media network.
Note 1. Some sites remove items after a given time period, change their urls, or place them in archives with inadequate search engines. For this reason it is project policy that urls of sources are NOT published on the iraqbodycount site.
3. Data extraction
Data extraction policy is based on 3 criteria, some of which work in opposite directions.
a. Sufficient information must be extracted to ensure that each incident is differentiated from proximate incidents with which it could be potentially confused.
b. Economy of data extraction is required, for efficiency of both production and public scrutiny.
c. Data extraction should be uniform, so that the same information is available for the vast majority of incidents. This is best guaranteed by restricting the number of items of information per incident to the core facts that most news reports tend to include.
The pragmatic tensions in the above have led to the decision to extract the following information only for each incident:
Date of incident
Time of incident
Location of incident
Target as stated by military sources
Weapon (munitions or delivery vehicle)
Minimum civilian deaths (see Note 2)
Maximum civilian deaths (see Note 2)
Sources (at least two sources from the list in section 2 above)
Reliability of data extraction will be increased by ensuring that each data extraction is checked and signed off by two further independent scrutineers prior to publication, and all data entries will be kept under review should further details become available at a later date.
Note 2. Definitions of minimum and maximum
Reports of numbers dead vary across sources. On-the-ground uncertainties and potential political bias can result in a range of figures reported for the same incident. To reflect this variation, each incident will be associated with a minimum and maximum reported number of deaths. No number will be entered into the count unless it meets the criteria in the following paragraphs. This conservative approach allows relative certainty about the minimum.
Maximum deaths. This is the highest number of civilian deaths published by at least two of our approved list of news media sources.
Minimum deaths. This is the same as the maximum, unless at least two of the listed news media sources publish a lower number. In this case, the lower number is entered as the minimum. The minimum can be zero if there is a report of "zero deaths" from two of our sources. "Unable to confirm any deaths" or similar wording (as in an official statement) does NOT amount to a report of zero, and will NOT lead to an entry of "0" in the minimum column.
As a further conservative measure, when the wording used in both reports refers to "people" instead of civilians, we will include the total figure as a maximum but enter "0" into the minimum column unless details are present clearly identifying some or all of the dead as civilian - in this case the number of identifiable civilians will be entered into the minimum column instead of "0". The word "family" will be interpreted in this context as meaning 3 civilians. [Average Iraqi non-extended family size: 6. -CIA Factbook 2002.]
4. Data storage
Although it is expected that the majority of sources will remain accessible on the web site from which they were drawn, the project will create a secure archive of all original sources (in both electronic and paper form). Where judged appropriate by the project team, this data may be released to bona-fide enquirers, for verification purposes. At an appropriate juncture, the entire archive will be passed to an institution of public record (such as a University or National Library) for permanent access by bona-fide researchers. The copyright of original sources will remain with the originators. The copyright of the Iraq Body Count data extraction remains with the named researchers on the project (see About us).
5. Publication of data (including conditions of use)
Once verified through the processes described in section 3 above, each new incident will be added as a new line on a spreadsheet database which will be updated regularly (at least daily) on the
www.iraqbodycount.org site. The total minimum and maximum deaths will be automatically updated, and will feed through to all remotely positioned web-counters donwloaded from the site.
Permission is granted for any individual or agency to download and display any of the web counters available on this site, provided that the link back to the
www.iraqbodycount.org site is not disabled or otherwise tampered with when displayed on a live interactive web-site. Permission is also granted for cut-and-paste downloads of the spreadsheet database listing each incident. All press and non-commercial uses are permitted. Other commercial uses are prohibited without explicit permission (contact
[email protected]).
We request that you acknowledge any use of the Iraq Body Count data base or its methodology by mentioning either the project name ("Iraq Body Count") or the url (www.iraqbodycount.org) or the names of the principal researchers, Hamit Dardagan and John Sloboda.
6. Limitations and scope of enquiry:
Any project has limitations and boundaries. Here are some FAQs about this topic and our answers to them.
Why don't you report all civilian deaths in Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War ended?
Our decision to stick with deaths from Jan 2003 is mainly tactical, and based on the resources we have. We would rather provide one stream of verifiable evidence to a high degree of reliablity than spread ourselves too thin. Current deaths are more newsworthy than past deaths, and will be of more interest to the general websites who will carry the IBC Web Counters. We agree that reckoning total deaths since 1991 is a very worthwhile project. We would be happy to support someone wanting to do this, but we can't manage it ourselves with current resources.
Why don't you report civilian injuries as well as deaths?
Injuries are difficult to quantify. Anything from shock to loss of limb can be classified as an injury. Also, injuries can recover, so that by the time there is independent verification the injury can have healed. The level of resource we would need to track and categorise the far higher number of injuries would likely overwhelm our resources. Deaths are irreversible and immutable. Again, they are the most "newsworthy" tip of the iceberg, and the greatest crime against innocents.
"Does your count include deaths from indirect causes?"
Each side can readily claim that indirectly-caused deaths are the "fault" of the other side or, where long-term illnesses and genetic disorders are concerned, "due to other causes." Our methodology requires that specific deaths attributed to US-led military actions are carried in at least two reports from our approved sources. This includes deaths resulting from the destruction of water treatment plants or any other lethal effects on the civilian population. The test for us remains whether the bullet (or equivalent) is attributed to a piece of weaponry where the trigger was pulled by a US or allied finger, or is due to "collateral damage" by either side (with the burden of responsibility falling squarely on the shoulders of those who initiate war without UN Security Council authorization). We agree that deaths from any deliberate source are an equal outrage, but in this project we want to only record those deaths to which we can unambiguously hold our own leaders to account. In short, we record all civilians deaths attributed to our military intervention in Iraq.
(The above FAQ does not apply to sanctions; although we are opposed to them, our study deals with the consequences of our current military actions in Iraq. It has also been newly revised due to our growing awareness that we were too narrowly-focused on bombs and other conventional weapons, neglecting the deadly effects of disrupted food, water, electricity and medical supplies. These effects, though relatively small at the outset of a war, are likely to become much more significant as time passes, and we will monitor media reports accordingly.)
Won't your count simply be a compilation of propaganda?
We acknowledge that many parties to this conflict will have an interest in manipulating casualty figures for political ends. There is no such thing (and will probably never be such a thing) as an "wholly accurate" figure, which could accepted as historical truth by all parties. This is why we will always publish a minimum and a maximum for each reported incident. Some sources may wish to over-report casualties. Others may wish to under-report them. Our methodology is not biased towards "propaganda" from any particular protagonist in the conflict. We will faithfully reflect the full range of reported deaths in our sources. These sources, which are predominantly Western (including long established press agencies such as Reuters and Associated Press) are unlikely to suppress conservative estimates which can act as a corrective to inflated claims. We rely on the combined, and self-correcting, professionalism of the world's press to deliver meaningful maxima and minima for our count.
Will you co-operate with other similar projects?
Many projects are needed to evaluate the full human cost of this war. We value them all, but this one is ours. We need to ensure that our study is focused and that its intent, scope and limits are widely and clearly understood. We will certainly build up and maintain our set of links to projects doing related work so that viewers of this site can be pointed to related activity.
