Understanding the Hundred Thousand

As you may know by now, Lancet has released a survey of "excess mortality" among civilians in Iraq which argues that 100,000 civilians have died as a direct result of the forces set in motion by the American invasion of Iraq. The method was to walk around from house to house asking people about family who have died since the invasion and then extrapolating the likely national total. On the one hand, this isn't a census of the dead, so it's not clear how much credence to assign it. On the ohter hand, it also catches things that previous surveys of hospitals and news accounts can't - the increased mortality directly attributable to rising lawlessness (as opposed to insurgent attacks) in the chaotic aftermath of the war.

Spencer Ackerman, over at The New Republic was somewhat skeptical of this staggeringly high number, and so he managed to get an interview with one of the scientists who helped conduct the survey and author its results. It's worth reading in full to get a handle on the methodology used, the amount of credence to ascribe to it, etc....