What was significant about this study was how it was reported. According to the Guardian (20th July), the study "calculates the toll of dead and injured since March 2003." That is not entirely true. As the report indicates, it should be regarded as the "baseline of the minimum number of deaths."
The report concludes that at least 24,865 civilians were killed up to March 19 2005, of which 9,270 or 37% died at the hands of the occupying forces. The second largest cause of death (36%) was criminal violence while the insurgency accounted for only 9 per cent, or 2,353 of the civilian total.
Most media compared these results with the Lancet figures from last October. According to the Guardian, "total number of deaths in the study is significantly lower than the estimated 98,000 figure in a disputed study in the medical journal The Lancet last autumn." Likewise, the Independent noted that the "only previous attempt to assess the level of civilian casualties was published in The Lancet medical journal" and somewhat incredulously noted that "its methodology was subsequently criticised." Yes it was criticised but it would have been more accurate to note that it had been criticised by those who either knew little about statistics or were pro-war. In reality, the Lancet article's methodology is the standard one for estimating civilian deaths in conflict situations and the statistics we have for other war zones (such as Bosnia) are heavily dependent on it.
Given that the IBC methodology is to record all deaths reported in the Western press, their number is almost certainly an underestimate. Many deaths will have been unreported and others reported only in the Iraqi press. To rely on Western language wire services is, obviously, less reliable than the household survey used by the Lancet article.
As such, these figures do not refute or replace the Lancet conclusion but rather complement it by providing a minimum of deaths attributed to war of choice Bush and Blair lied to get. Sadly, this has been obscured by the media, even those who took an anti-war position. Yet even if this 25,000 figure is the bare minimum, it is still over 8 times the number killed on 9/11.