According to Amnesty International, Saddam Hussein was responsible for 1.4 million deaths in his 24 years of rule. That is about 159 per day.

Had we not booted the bastard out and his killing went on at the same rate, there would have been over 232,000 dead in the last four years. Those would be directly from actions by Saddam.

Deaths by Saddam since we pulled him out of a hole in the ground: 0. Deaths due to civil war since Saddam left: about 38,000, or about 26 per day. Not good, but still better than it was. As soon as some of the waring factions start to believe that they cannot win through violence, it will stop.

About the Lancet (online) article: "'The authors ignore contrary evidence, cherry-pick and manipulate supporting evidence and evade inconvenient questions,' contends Professor Spagat, who believes the paper was poorly reviewed. 'They published a sampling methodology that can overestimate deaths by a wide margin but respond to criticism by claiming that they did not actually follow the procedures that they stated.' The paper had 'no scientific standing'. Did he rule out the possibility of fraud? 'No.'

If you factor in politics, the heat increases. One of The Lancet authors, Dr Les Roberts, campaigned for a Democrat seat in the US House of Representatives and has spoken out against the war. Dr Richard Horton, editor of the The Lancet is also antiwar..."             {recent Times Newspapers Ltd. (England)}