I see Big Mick is still a bit picky about when to call a terrorist a terrorist. In my book all the wrongs of the loyalist factions, and those in British governmental agencies that aided them, don't begin to justify targeting innocent civilians in Warrington. And it is a fact that large numbers of otherwise decent-minded Americans helped to fund such terrorist atrocities over many years.

Greg, where do you get the idea that arial bombardment is not capable of killing people in large numbers? More significantly you take no account of the enormous damage that has been caused to basic infrastructure. Water supply, hospitals, etc. (The occupiers have still not restored electircity supply to pre-war levels.)

A link has been provided to the Lancet report. I suggest you read it. From memory I think it estimated that one in every 20 households in Iraq has lost someone since the war started. I too find this incredible, but I am inclined to believe it. (They used a randomly distributed sample of 1,000 interviewees. This is comparable with the size of sample used for many political-opinion surveys in the UK, the results of which are extrapolated on to a three-times larger population.) In some ways the Lancet erred on the side of caution, for instance by excluding the returns from interviewees in Falluja where the rate of fatalities has been even higher than in Iraq a whole.

The estimate of 98,000 fatalities is almost certainly nearer the truth than the idle guesstimates we have had from the coalition, which for all the science that went into them might as well have been plucked from thin air. The organisations behind the work published by the Lancet have at least shown that even with extremely limited funds and resources it is perfectly feasible to do a more thorough job than had been attempted hitherto. The occupying forces really can't complain, given that they chose, as a matter of policy, not to do the job themselves.