At least half a million Iraqi civilians were killed directly by the Iraq War, and by violence in the US occupation of Iraq from 2003 through 2011.  That’s the finding of a groundbreaking survey of nearly 2,000 Iraqi households about how they suffered during the war.

“We think it is roughly around half a million people dead. And that is likely a low estimate,” said public health expert Amy Hagopian of the University of Washington in Seattle, a member of the international research team that polled heads of households and siblings across Iraq.

The survey is published in PLOS Medicine journal.  The researchers, including some from the Iraqi Ministry of Health, aimed to update and improve past estimates of the human costs of the war and occupation.

Past estimates of civilian deaths have varied.  Research conducted by Opinion Research Business, a London-based polling agency, estimated Iraq war deaths at 1.2 million people through 2007.  Wikileaks revealed US Army war logs downplaying the number at more than 100,000.  Former US President George W. Bush once claimed only 30 thousand civilians were killed in his war.

Hagopian says the survey estimate is likely low, because it relied on the imperfect recollections of household members and largely missed the 1.1 million Iraqis living in displaced-person camps or in other countries.

“People need to know the cost in human lives of the decision to go to war.”