
Study Finds U.S. Invasion of Iraq killed about 460,000 People - jorganisak
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001533
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tokenadult
Of course I knew that the original article title (which is not the same as the
submission title here) had to refer to both the actual invasion (a rather
brief military operation) and the badly mismanaged occupation of Iraq. I think
it's a fair point to blame most of the deaths in Iraq caused by violence
during the occupation on the occupation having occurred as it did. But that
causation is less direct than battle deaths of civilians during the invasion.
I by no means have anything good to say about how the occupation was planned
and carried out--it badly hurt Iraq, and reflected very poorly on the United
States compared to the postwar occupations of German or Japan. But on the
other hand, for all I know if Saddam Hussein had died peacefully of natural
causes in the same time frame, perhaps the country would have been every bit
as internally violent.

