08:50, 21-Mar-2018
Iraq War 15 Years On: Death toll in Iraq is still disputed
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Estimates of the number of Iraqis killed by the war and the violence that followed are still highly controversial.
One of the best known figures is produced by the website Iraq Body Count that has recorded up to 200-thousands of civilians killed in past 15 years. But other research has put the numbers much higher. The Lancet Study estimated 650 thousand excess deaths in the first three years alone. And a survey by the British company ORB in 2007 suggested the death toll could have surpassed a million.
The Iraq Body Count figures show a series of peaks in the violence, starting in March and April of 2003 when the US and Britain invaded. The year spanning summer 2006 to 2007 marked the highest point of sectarian tensions until 2014, when the extremist group ISIL seize huge swathes of territory, including Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq.