Owl Pellets of Progress

Remember the howls of derision that greeted The Lancet's now 2-year old report of 100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq? Well, the study has been updated, so prepare for the screech owls of denial to tune up for a mass hoot:

A careful Johns Hopkins study has estimated that between 420,000 and 790,000 Iraqis have died as a result of war and political violence since the beginning of the US invasion in March, 2003.

Interesting conclusions are that we are wrong to focus so much on suicide car bombings. The real action is just shooting enemies down with bullets. Only 30 percent of the deaths have been caused by the US military, and that percentage has declined this year because of the sectarian war.

Why, look up in that tree! There's one now:

Frederick Jones, a spokesman for the National Security Council said "many experts" found that a 2004 study by the same group "wildly inflated the findings." That study said the war had caused 100,000 Iraqi deaths.

"This study appears to be equally flawed," he said. The new study said the deaths have resulted from coalition military activity, crime and religious violence.

Seems like only yesterday we heard Bush saying:

"We've made good progress. Iraq is more secure."

Sorry. That was all the way back in August. Who could have anticipated the Iraqis would die like flies?