Iraq has a population of around 27 million people. Lancet's mortality estimates Lancet Mortality Study have been prepared annually by surveying clusters of 40 households in each of Iraq's governorates. The surveys have been scientifically validated in regard to methodology and now provide a record of what the war is doing to Iraq and its people, and what the demographic consequences can be expected to be. The surveys follow a methodology which has been applied, unfortunately, in many similar conflicts around the world, from Guatemala to Bosnia. They are more reliable under conflict conditions than attempting to actually count people.

The figure of 650,000 represents the increase in mortality, extra deaths, caused by the war. By comparison, over roughly the same period of thirty months that the war has been going on, around 200,000 have been killed in Darfur, Sudan, but Sudan's total population is round 40 million. On the other end of the scale 650,000 were killed in Rwanda, during the genocide there, Rwanda's population was recently estimated at around 7.8 million. Democratic Congo, where nearly 5 million have died since 1998, with a population of an estimated 55 million, 48% of which is under the age of 14, is in a league of its own, and does not seem to merit anything like the priority of discussion accorded to Dharfur. And in East Timor 200,000 out of a population of 800,000 were killed during the break away from Indonesia.

The 650,000 estimated Iraqi deaths represent around 2.5% of the population. It can help sometimes to try and bring numbers like this home. Here in the U.S., where the population is around 300 million, it might be helpful to consider what 7.5 million extra deaths in 30 months would mean to the country, for that is how many people 2.5% of the population would be. This was stated forcefully at Congressman Kucinich's hearings by Juan Cole and the study's authors.

Another way to think about that is quite simple. The population of New York City is around 8 million people. Imagine what it might mean if the whole city of New York had disappeared over 30 months, what the memorials and celebrations might look like, and what the content of the politicians' speeches would be. That is what the dead 650,000 might represent to Iraq.

Another way to look at is a bit different: San Diego, Phoenix, Dallas, Philadephia, pre-Katrina New Orleans are all cities with populations in the range of 1.5 million, more or less. They could all disappear and their loss would be about the same as the losses that have been incurred in Iraq. Katrina proved to be a test that the county could not respond to in any appropriate way, either then, or subsequently. Would the country which could not deal with one Katrina be any better equipped to deal with the simultaneous eruption of 5 of them?

The authors of the Lancet report take great pains to rebut the charges that unofficial numbers are better than their estimates. The ratio 10 to 1, estimated casualty figures to more official casualty numbers is pretty standard for these kind of circumstances. The incidents reported and featured in the media here, are only drawn from less than 20% of the country, mainly Baghdad. Only 15% or less of casualties among civilians are caused by I.E.D's, car bombs, or other ordnance. The vast majority of deaths (56%) are caused by gun shot wounds. People shooting people, probably their neighbors. These kinds of deaths are not important or significant enough to be counted. The Iraqi government has higher numbers than the unofficial tally of 60,000 or so circulated by coalition members, but only includes victims of Sunni violence.

Before the invasion, total mortality in Iraq was around 5.5 per 1,000 of the total population per year. By May-June of this past year when the report was prepared, mortality was 13.3 per 1,000. In the sample populations, where 80 people died before the war, in the base year, 14 children under 14, 19 adult males 15-59, 6 adult women and 40 elderly, by this year there were 247 non-violent deaths, and 300 violent ones among the sampled population. The age break down for the two categories combined being 66 children, 272 adult males, 54 adult females and 137 elderly.

Most of the deaths are males under the age of 39. It is not clear exactly what the unemployment rate is in Iraq. At the Kucinich hearings Juan Cole presented his own estimate, anywhere between 30 and 60%. One out of every seven households has lost a loved one.

By the end of 2005 international aid agencies estimated that there were rather more than 1.3 million people who were "internally displaced" within Iraq. At the end of the same year, more than 500,000 had taken refuge in Jordan and another 500,000 in Syria. These numbers have increased over this past year. Bill Frelick wrote about the situation in Jordan at roughly the same time that Bush went to Amman to meet with Maliki. The link will take you to his report. Before the end of 2005, this was more than twice the number of people who had gone into exile during the period of Saddam's rule. The adult males, unemployed, are involved in the fighting. Women and children make up a lot of the refugees. In Jordan the children are not allowed into public or private schools. The adult refugees become competitors with local Jordanians in the labor pool, doing menial work, and worse.

There remain between 250,000 and 600,000 Lebanese displaced after this past summer's attack. Pakistan and Iran are hosts, between them, to over 2 million refugees from Afghanistan, not all from the post 9/11 campaign obviously.

By contrast, in 2000 when David Sheffer, Ambassador at Large for War Crimes presented his report   Case for Justice in Iraq, he covered 20 years of Saddam Hussein's activities in arguing that 5,000 Iranians had died from chemical weapons in the 1980's war, and "several thousand" Iranian prisoners had been killed, and that at Halabia in March 1988 5,000 Kurds had been killed, and Anfal had killed perhaps 50,000 to 100,000 Kurds. That more than 1,000 had been killed in the Iraqi invasion of Kuweit, and "hostages taken", that 30 to 60,000 Iraqis had been killed in the aftermath of the war, among other untold unlawful killings. 1.5 million Kurds are thought to have become refugees in 1991.

There has been war then continuously in the country for a generation. 40% of the Iraqi population are under the age of 14. They have known nothing but war. They are as innocent as the children of Sudan, or the children of Democratic Congo, or the children of Afghanistan. None of these have known anything other than war.

Let's just shift the frame. The US Census Bureau estimates the world's population at around 6.5 billion. India and China with 2.3 billion between them make up around 38-39% of the total. Half of the world's entire population is under the age of 25. Nearly 28% of the total population is under 14 years old. The world's population is growing at about 35 million people per year, a bit less than the population of Sudan. 95% of the growth is in the developing world, the other 5% among the rest. 9 countries will account, over the next twenty years for more than half of the growth. These are, in order of contribution to the growth total India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Uganda, USA, Ethiopia and China.

The countries of the Mid East Area, broadly defined represent around 300 million people, about the same number as the US does, between them less than 10% of the whole. This table, from estimates Mid East Population Profile provides an overview:

The refugee numbers come from estimates of the Church World Service and an organization called International Displacement.org.

It might be useful to think about the military predicament in Iraq in light of what might be inferred from these numbers. Bush's sought for larger war can easily be considered to be here already. Since the bloodbath in Iraq is exporting both people and hatred into a combustible mix over to the Mediterranean coast in the west and the Indus Valley in the East, events there cannot be separated from what is developing elsewhere. How long can Jordan or Syria last, in the present forms with the influx of refugees they are receiving? What about Lebanon? Turkish involvement with the Kurds, whose Public Relations division presents them as a country equal, or greater in number of people to Iraq and Afghanistan, and whose Pesh Merga guerillas have become the backbone of the Iraqi army. Perhaps it is time to dust off the manuals on the campaigns of Genghis Khan and the Golden Horde through Central Asia and the Mid East. It is certainly time to consider the combined effect of regular, irregular, and just war against civilians across the whole region. There are not too many areas there left unaffected.

India has more children now than the US does people. That, together with oil, may be part of the backdrop to Bush's war, but it will be a story for another day.

Let’s put the matter of the Iraqi refugees and displaced people into the same frame of local reference employed earlier. As we saw, the numbers could amount to between 2 and 3 million people, with a million or more people leaving the country, and over a million displaced within it. In the US context this would represent between 21 and 33 million people, 7-11% of the population.

This link 50 Largest US Cities helps to define what kind of problems are opened up by this line of thought. The lower 7% proportion of the population would be represented by the dislocation of the 6 largest US cities: New York City NY, Los Angeles CA, Chicago Ill, Houston Tx, Philadelphia Pa, Phoenix Az. The 11% upper bound by the top 17 cities in the country, so San Antonio Tx, San Diego Ca, Dallas Tx, San Jose Ca, Detroit Mi, Indianapolis In, Jacksonville Fl, San Francisco Ca, Columbus Oh, Austin Tx, Memphis Ten, would need to be added to the list.

Trying to think about what it might be like to live in the US with that much dislocation going on might help put the discussion about the civil war or not, whether it is, when it will be and so on into a different context. Taking that list of US cities from Infoplease, how far down the list do you need to go before the ability to maintain institutional functionality becomes marginalized, or becomes included in a broader,newer definition of 'collateral damage'?

Different people would probably have different ideas about this. Basically though, the east and west coast population corridors would be absolutely disrupted, along with Texas and the core of the old industrial Mid West. What would be left would be the Pacific North West and the original states of the old Confederacy. I left New Orleans off the list this time. The Iraqi refugees are moving this kind of image of the future with them into the broader region as they attempt to flee from the internal conflict. Thinking of what that might mean for us is an efficient aid to improving a view of what it does mean for the people directly affected. Such a long way away can become so much closer.

It might be time to reconsider the Terminator image from the beginning. What possible motivation could there be for doing this to populations which are so massively weighted towards the under 14’s and females? The age cohorts from which fighters are drawn can only represent around 20% of the population if the fighting force is male only. And in asymmetrical 'conflict' the enemy really only has himself to deploy, not the power of technology. Since when did the mission of the US consist of spreading the fire of war into the lives of children women and elderly and sick? On behalf of what? Might there not be assumptions to be considered about a country which seems to decide by reflex now that sending in the troops to deal with populations that are from 30-50% children is the acceptable and effective way of dealing with any problem that comes up? Shouldn't we be able to find better ways of working with the countries where the future of humanity is going to play out, if only because they are the ones producing the children who will people it?