Here's a new figure thats being trotted out by the New York Times... please pardon the cut-n-paste... but I think the url was too long to fit into the little box on the blue clicky thingy...

BAGHDAD, Jan. 16 — The United Nations reported Tuesday that more than 34,000 Iraqis were killed in violence last year, a figure that represents the first comprehensive annual count of civilian deaths...

This latest figure was the first attempt at hand-counting individual deaths for an entire year. It was compiled using statistics from local morgues, hospitals and municipal authorities across Iraq and was nearly three times higher than an estimate for 2006 compiled from Iraqi ministry tallies by The Associated Press earlier this month.

sounds legit so far...
ttr