866-987 additional deaths recorded at Baghdad's main morgue

This entry covers the 1,536 [AP, WP] deaths recorded at the Baghdad city morgue during August 2006. As in previous entries based on morgue records, a series of adjustments was made to the initial “raw” figure before Iraq Body Count (IBC) added the x493h entry to its database. Principal considerations were:

1. Possible presence of combatants among the dead

2. Pre and post-war mortality levels for the periods covered

3. Overlaps with existing IBC entries

1. Possible presence of combatants among the dead

IBC does not record Iraqi army, insurgents or other fighters in its count unless they are killed post-capture (at which point they assume "protected person" status under international conventions). The morgue does not handle deaths among Iraqi defence forces killed in open combat, but other combatants may be present in their records. To adjust for the possible presence of such fighters in its count, it was important that IBC find alternative sources or methods for deriving their potential number.

Figures from the Iraqi Interior Ministry were available during 2005 for 'insurgents' killed during clashes with government forces (police, soldiers and US troops), including those killed during raids who resisted arrest. There are no such figures available for 2006 as a whole, and our analysis had revealed no discernible month-by-month correlation between civilian, police, or insurgent figures during the previous year. Furthermore there have since 2005 been more deaths of militia in inter-tribal or 'sectarian' killings (thereby likely placing more combatants into the morgue figures), while at the same time more of these deaths have been caused not in fighting but in captures followed by execution, effectively taking these dead out of IBC "combatant" status and making them eligible for inclusion in our count (see preceding paragraph).

We continue here our past method for estimating the presence of combatants in the morgue figures, the reasoning for which was explained in earlier morgue entries:

To allow for the sentence in the reports which reads "Also, the bodies of killed fighters from groups like the al-Mahdi Army are rarely taken to morgues," an estimate of "between 1 in 50 to 1 in 25" was used to represent the fighters' "rarely" featuring in morgue statistics.

We therefore subtract 4 percent from the Min column and 2 percent from the Max column to produce "fighter-free" estimates for x493h.

2. Pre and post-war mortality levels for the periods covered

IBC only includes violent civilian deaths in its count that are directly attributable to the military intervention in Iraq. One of the results of the intervention has been a calamitous breakdown in civil security, particularly in Baghdad, which continues to worsen as insurgency, counter-insurgency, sectarian, and less-readily identifiable killings compound increased deaths from “ordinary” crime. The principal role of the morgue is to identify the cause of death for legal purposes, meaning that all “suspicious” deaths, including those from accidents, are referred there. Such deaths, and those from crime, occurred during the pre-war period as they would in any big city, and would have continued at some level whether or not Iraq was invaded. Morgue officials have variously said that 10-20 percent of the bodies brought to the morgue in July 2006 were of non-violent deaths [Reuters, AP].

This ordinary, "background" rate of autopsies is therefore subtracted by IBC from post-invasion morgue figures. Where known, the exact number of a corresponding pre-war month in 2002-2003 is subtracted. Where the exact figure is unknown, we subtract "200-250 per month," based on interviews with the morgue’s long-standing director, a figure that also accords well with exact numbers, which all fall within this range, e.g., the July 2002 figure was separately reported by the LA Times and the New York Times (both 16 Sep 2003) to have been 237.

Accordingly, the total adjustment for the ordinary, background rate of pre-war autopsies to x493h was 250 (subtracted from the Min column) and 200 (subtracted from the Max).

3. Overlaps with existing IBC entries

Deaths in Baghdad in August 2006 already recorded by IBC and caused by gunfire and non-explosive weaponry were subtracted from both the Min and Max columns for x493h, since such deaths are typically referred to the morgue.

In some reports from the morgue it is stated that deaths from bombings are not handled there. However, in other and more detailed interviews, it is stated that this refers to deaths from "major" explosions that do not require forensic attention because the circumstances of the deaths are already well known. To identify those incidents which might not be considered "major" in post-invasion Baghdad we looked at the frequency of incidents involving bombings in the city that had relatively small numbers of casualties. We included injured in this since an incident that kills 3 but wounds 19 is unlikely to be considered minor.

Our analysis showed a sharp drop-off in frequency after 8 combined casualties (killed and wounded). All Baghdad bombing events recorded by IBC below this number were considered to be potential, but not definite, overlaps with the morgue data, and accordingly were only removed from the Min column of x493h.

IBC is currently making an adjustment for unidentified bodies recovered from the Tigris river near the town of As Suwayrah (alternative transliterations include Swaira, Suweira) in the Baghdad-outlying province of Wassit. This adjustment is based on a 7th October 2006 report from ABC on a filtration system near this town where bodies dumped in the river further upstream (including in southern Baghdad districts) tend to be discovered - 339 of them since January 2005, which is "considered one of the highest numbers of corpses found in a single location in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003."

Significant for entries based on records from the Baghdad morgue is that:

Once recovered from the river, bodies are photographed at the [Suwayrah] police station, and if they remain unclaimed after a day, they are sent to the morgue in Baghdad.

Of the 339 bodies recovered over these 21 months, 91 were identified by relatives (we assume in Suwayrah, not Baghdad). This would mean that 248 of the bodies were forwarded to the Baghdad morgue and also recorded there. Over the same period IBC recorded some 240 bodies recovered from the Tigris at Suwayrah. Assuming that the rough claimed/unclaimed ratio of 1:3 also holds for IBC-recorded bodies, then there would be a total of around 180 deaths which would overlap with those from the morgue over this time. It should be understood that the size of this overlap is by no means certain: it is possible that either the identified or the unidentified bodies are over- or underrepresented in IBC's applicable deaths over this period. Nor is it clear how they were distributed over time. Nonetheless, double counts between the morgue and Suwayrah figures cannot appear in months in which there are no such Suwayrah entries. Given the above, a simple adjustment is to consider 75% of the number of applicable deaths in IBC's database as probably overlapping with the Baghdad morgue, and accordingly reduce the morgue entry for that month. As IBC's applicable Suwayrah number in August 2006 was 39-40, we therefore need to reduce the current morgue entry by 29-30.

Until further information comes to light, we consider only bodies retrieved from the Tigris in the Wassit town of Suwayrah to be automatic candidates for overlaps with the Baghdad morgue.

In all, some 103 overlapping and partially overlapping IBC entries were identified in the database, leading to the removal of 340 from the Min and 301 from the Max.

As a result of the steps described in 1., 2., and 3., above, a total of 652 and 532 were subtracted from the 1,536 media-reported raw number for August 2006, leading to an addition of 884 (min) - 1,004 (max) to the IBC database.