A new study rising from the ashes of a flawed old one estimates a half million Iraqis died as a result of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation.
The count of the dead in Syria and other global trouble spots matters a great deal, and so does the provenance of the numbers presented. Here's one exhaustive effort to get them right.
To paraphrase Stalin, one dead body is a fact; a million dead bodies are a point of contention.
Researchers Christian Davenport and Allan C. Stam say the accepted story of the mass killings of 1994 is incomplete, and the full truth — inconvenient as it may be to the Rwandan government — needs to come out.