WikiLeaks and Iraq Body Count: the Sum of Parts May Not Add Up to the Whole—A Comparison of Two Tallies of Iraqi Civilian Deaths

Abstract

Passive surveillance systems, widely seen as incomplete, may also be selective in the types of events detected in times of armed conflict. Bombings and other events during which many people are killed, and events in less violent areas, appear to be detected far more often, creating a skewed image of the mortality profile in Iraq. Members of the press and researchers should be hesitant to draw conclusions about the nature or extent of violence from passive surveillance systems of low or unknown sensitivity.

Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation: Findings from a National Cluster Sample Survey by the University Collaborative Iraq Mortality Study

“…The emergence of the Wikileaks “Iraq War Logs” reports in October 2010 [69] prompted the Iraq Body Count team to add to its count, but a recent comparison of recorded incidents between the two databases revealed that the Iraq Body Count captured fewer than one in four of the Iraq War Logs deaths [70]. One important reason for the discrepancy is that small incidents are often missed in press reports.…”

Estimating mortality from external causes using data from retrospective surveys: A validation study in Niakhar (Senegal)

“…Data on conflict-related deaths thus comes from a number of incomplete sources, such as media reports (Hicks et al 2011) or inventories of graveyards (Etcheson 2005). There is little agreement between these sources (Carpenter, Fuller, and Roberts 2013), with estimates of a conflict's death toll routinely varying by orders of magnitude (Heuveline 2015).…”

Violent deaths of media workers associated with conflict in Iraq, 2003–2012

“…A further limitation is that our source for civilian deaths, the Iraq Body Count, is likely to be underrepresenting death rates (Carpenter, Fuller & Roberts, 2013; Hagopian et al, 2013). In addition the Iraq Body Count data includes media worker deaths among civilian deaths and these were not removed from the civilian death counts.…”