What is behind criticism of Iraq deaths estimate?

17:19 06 February 2009 by Debora MacKenzie

As the US starts down the long road to military withdrawal from Iraq, the row over how many deaths were caused by the invasion has reignited.

Gilbert Burnham, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, calculated in 2006 that there had been between 400,000 and 950,000 "excess" deaths of Iraqis - those that would not have occurred had there been no war - since the US-led invasion of 2003.