The following correction was printed in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday November 14, 2004
In the article below, while discussing the Lancet's survey of civilian deaths in Iraq, we say that 'The report's authors admit it drew heavily on the rebel stronghold of Falluja... Strip out Falluja, as the study itself acknowledged, and the mortality rate is reduced dramatically.' This implies that the estimated mortality rate is reduced from 98,000 to something less if Falluja is not included. In fact, the figure of 98,000 is the result of removing Falluja from the reckoning. If Falluja had been included, the figure would have been considerably higher.
It was the report that saw science and politics clash, and the fallout is still being felt. A paper in the medical journal the Lancet which claimed that almost 100,000 people have died since the invasion of Iraq has prompted Jack Straw to launch an urgent inquiry into how casualty rates are calculated.
Dr Richard Horton, the Lancet's editor, staunchly defends the report and called on more scientists to debate such issues. 'One should openly acknowledge science is political and not be afraid to get stuck into the debate,' Horton said in his first interview since the report appeared. 'To me that's one of the failures of science. It sees itself as being very apolitical, and that's just nonsense.'
The report, based on interviews with 998 households in 33 clusters across Iraq, found the risks of death for civilians after the invasion was 2.5 times higher than before it.
The Iraqi Ministry of Defence estimates there have been some 15,000 deaths in the past six months alone, while US-based think tank the Brookings Institution believes the number killed since the invasion is 27,000 at most
Straw has committed himself to reporting the government findings to Parliament, although he has not given a date for this. It is believed that the government is bringing in a team of experts to assess the conflicting figures with a view to producing a new, authoritative assessment.
The Lancet study, from Iraqi field researchers led by America's Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, was published soon before the US election, bringing accusations that the respected journal had become politicised. Journalist Michael Fumenton of the the US-based TCS website called it 'Al-Jazeera on the Thames'.
Commentators claimed it failed to acknowledge the part played by Iraqi insurgents in blowing up the country's infrastructure, which will inevitably have led to higher mortality rates. Nor, critics maintain, did it distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths, making the overall estimate meaningless.
The report's authors admit it drew heavily on the rebel stronghold of Falluja, which has been plagued by fierce fighting. Strip out Falluja, as the study itself acknowledged, and the mor tality rate is reduced dramatically.
Some focused on the acknowledgement that the true number of casualties could actually be as low as 8,000 or as high as 194,000, before concluding the accurate figure was most likely to be around 98,000. 'This isn't an estimate. It's a dart board,' noted a journalist with the US magazine Slate.
But Horton said critics had misunderstood the figures. 'It's not true to say it is equally likely that the number of civilian casualties lies anywhere between 8,000 and 194,000, and you kind of pick a mid-point. It's highly probable the figure is 98,000. Anything more or less is much less probable.'
He shrugged off criticism that it was 'fast-tracked' for publication before the US election. 'We do that with papers that are of extreme public health significance. I doubt whether we have fast-tracked anything of more public health significance than this study, not because of the political situation in America but because on a daily basis we are seeing the situation in Iraq become ever more unstable.'
Horton acknowledged the paper was 'atypical' for the Lancet, but said he hoped the journal would produce more of the same.
'We have a choice: do we want the blood of Iraqi civilians and children on our hands or don't we? The only way we know [what has happened] is by actually having scientists go and get the data.'