CIVILIAN DEATHS IN IRAQ

Early day motion 1328, tabled 23 April 2007 by Dai Davies (Independent). Signed by 33 members.

That this House recalls the publication on 11th October 2006 in The Lancet of a study on Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey, by the School of Public Health at John Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, which concluded that some 601,000 civilian Iraqi deaths had occurred since the invasion in March 2003, as a result of violence, mostly gunfire; recalls that in response the study was criticised as inaccurate and misleading; congratulates the BBC World Service reporter Owen Bennett-Jones, who discovered via a Freedom of Information Act request that the Government had asked the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and Department for International Development to assess the validity of the research methods employed in the study; notes that the MOD's chief scientific adviser, Sir Roy Anderson, told Ministers privately two days after The Lancet report was issued that the survey's methods were close to best practice and the study design was robust; and calls upon the Government to consider the claims made in the study as a matter of urgency.

Signatures by party: Labour 14, Liberal Democrat 10, Social Democratic and Labour Party 3, Plaid Cymru 2, Conservative 1, Independent 1, Respect 1, Scottish National Party 1.