An investigation carried out by the Los Angeles Times has concluded at 50,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the start of the Iraq war. The number is equivalent to the killing of some 570,000 Americans over the same period. Other studies have put the toll at far higher. In 2004, a John Hopkins study published in the British medical journal the Lancet estimated the Iraqi civilian death toll at over 100,000. That number was considered conservative because it excluded the toll in Fallujah — one of the hardest hit cities of the invasion. The Los Angeles Times’ estimate was based on statistics from the Baghdad morgue, the Iraqi Health Ministry and other agencies. Their figure is at least 20,000 more than the Bush administration has publicly acknowledged.