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GUEST: Adam Kokesh, Co-Chair of Iraq Veterans Against the War

A new study released by the World Health Organization last Wednesday places the number of violent Iraqi deaths at 151,000 since the 2003 U.S. invasion. The study’s figures were compiled using an Iraqi health ministry survey of nearly 10,000 households making the findings the most comprehensive of their kind to date. The WHO’s statistics, which cover civilian deaths from March 2003 to June 2006, are significantly lower than the 2006 Lancet study but are much higher than figures compiled by the human rights group, Iraq Body Count. The new study found violence to be the leading cause of death among Iraqi men aged 15-59 years since the start of the U.S. invasion. Iraqi civilian deaths are feared to be on the rise following the U.S.’s bombing campaign of Baghdad’s outskirts. Dubbed Operation Phantom Phoenix, the U.S. military claims that its air strikes are aimed at Al-Qaeda targets. Within the first ten minutes of last week’s operations, thirty-eight bombs weighing a combined 40,000 pounds were dropped on the southern outskirts of the Iraqi capital.

For more information about Iraq Veterans Against the War and about the upcoming “Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan,” visit www.ivaw.org.