The British government was advised against publicly criticising a report estimating that 655,000 Iraqis had died due to the war, the BBC has learnt.

Iraqi Health Ministry figures put the toll at less than 10% of the total in the survey, published in the Lancet. But the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the survey's methods were "close to best practice" and the study design was "robust". Another expert agreed the method was "tried and tested".

Mortality rates

The Iraq government asks the country's hospitals to report the number of victims of terrorism or military action. Critics say the system was not started until well after the invasion and requires over-pressed hospital staff not only to report daily, but also to distinguish between victims of terrorism and of crime.

The Lancet medical journal published its peer-reviewed survey last October. It was conducted by the John Hopkins School of Public Health and compared mortality rates before and after the invasion by surveying 47 randomly chosen areas across 16 provinces in Iraq. The researchers spoke to nearly 1,850 families, comprising more than 12,800 people. In nearly 92% of cases family members produced death certificates to support their answers. The survey estimated that 601,000 deaths were the result of violence, mostly gunfire.

Shortly after the publication of the survey in October last year Tony Blair's official spokesperson said the Lancet's figure was not anywhere near accurate. He said the survey had used an extrapolation technique, from a relatively small sample from an area of Iraq that was not representative of the country as a whole. President Bush said: "I don't consider it a credible report."

But a memo by the MoD's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Roy Anderson, on 13 October, states: "The study design is robust and employs methods that are regarded as close to "best practice" in this area, given the difficulties of data collection and verification in the present circumstances in Iraq."

'Cannot be rubbished'

One of the documents just released by the Foreign Office is an e-mail in which an official asks about the Lancet report: "Are we really sure the report is likely to be right? That is certainly what the brief implies." The reply from another official is: "We do not accept the figures quoted in the Lancet survey as accurate. " In the same e-mail the official later writes: "However, the survey methodology used here cannot be rubbished, it is a tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones."

Asked how the government can accept the Lancet's methodology but reject its findings, the government has issued a written statement in which it said: "The methodology has been used in other conflict situations, notably the Democratic republic of Congo. "However, the Lancet figures are much higher than statistics from other sources, which only goes to show how estimates can vary enormously according to the method of collection. "There is considerable debate amongst the scientific community over the accuracy of the figures."

'Mainstreet bias'

In fact some of the British government criticism of the Lancet report post-dated Sir Roy's comments. Speaking six days after Sir Roy praised the study's methods, British foreign office minister Lord Triesman said: "The way in which data are extrapolated from samples to a general outcome is a matter of deep concern...."

Some scientists have subsequently challenged the validity of the Lancet study. Questions have been asked about the survey techniques and the possibility of "mainstreet bias".

Dr Michael Spagat of Royal Holloway London University says that most of those questioned lived on streets more likely than average to witness attacks: "It would appear they were only able to sample a small sliver of the country," he said. Dr Spagat has previously conducted research with Iraq Body Count, an NGO that counts deaths on the basis of media reports and which has produced estimates far lower than those published in the Lancet.

At least 1,809 civilians were killed in the month, compared to 1,760 in July, based on figures compiled by the AP from official Iraqi reports. That brings to 27,564 the number of Iraqi civilians killed since AP began collecting data on April 28, 2005.

September 2007 - More than 1,000,000 Iraqis murdered

In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent ‘surge’ is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003.

That?s a false dichotomy; there are other explanations for the drop in violence. Statistics bear out that possibly 20% of the Iraqi population is gone, either dead (up to 1 million) or made refugees, or internally displaced (up to 5 million). With those kinds of numbers I would be surprised if the violence didn?t fall as targets are becoming fewer and fewer.

As for the alleged WMD, you?re making presumptions about them.  All we know is what the unclassified NGIC report stated, that report was released by the now defeated Rick Santorum.  It only stated that the military had in its possession 500 shells, some of which contained degraded mustard gas.  It is unclear and thus unknown how they were found or in what condition they were found, or who helped them find it.  What we do know is that Saddam accounted for all of his chemical shells; either through destruction in the Iran-Iraq War, unilateral destruction in 1991, or UNSCOM destruction after the Gulf War, except for 500 shells which he declared ?missing?.  Now it could be very likely that these shells are the same 500 that went ?missing? (probably off the inventory sheet, an accounting error, or just abandoned after the Iran-Iraq war), but that?s a presumption. It could be that there are still 500 more shells out there that haven?t been found; or they have been found and haven?t been reported.  If that?s the case then Saddam would have something to answer for if he wasn?t already dead. As it stands though the number of shells (I assume it?s a total number that includes the shells the ISG mentioned in their report) found is approximately the same number Iraq declared "missing".

We believed, or were led to believe, that Saddam had not been full and complete with his disclosure and that he was undercounting the number of WMD that he produced, hiding large quantities of them (for some nefarious purpose).  That turned out to be not the case, nor was it the case that Saddam had re-started any of his weapons programs. The neo-cons were duped, or duped their followers, either way both looked foolish after the war, and so went grasping for straws.  These paltry 500 shells were seized upon by the right-wing media, and then by you, as proof that the war effort is vindicated.  If you want to argue that these 500 shells were in violation of the UN Security Council resolutions, it?s a moot point since the war was never authorized by the UN Security Council.  If you want to argue that these shells constituted a grave threat to American security, that?s silly since Saddam didn?t have any delivery vehicles for these shells, and it is questionable how potent ?degraded? gas really is.