Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003 several different efforts have been made to get an estimate of the total number of deaths of Iraqis. 
The different methodologies utilized to get the estimates produced very different results. For example, a study by Roberts, Lafta, Garfield, Khudhairi 
and Burnham published in The Lancet estimated the excess in the number of Iraqis deaths due to the war during the period between the beginning of 
the invasion and September 2004 (17.8 months) to be approximately 98,000 with a 95\% confidence interval of (8,000-194,000), while for the same 
period, the Iraq Body Count (IBC) web site claimed to produce an estimate of the number of civilians reported killed to be between 17,004 and 19,840. 
A more recent study by Burnham, Lafta, Doocy and Roberts, also published in The Lancet, estimated the excess in the number of deaths up to July 2006 
to be around 650,000 with a 95\% confidence interval of (392,979-942,636), while for the same period the IBC published an estimate of the number of 
civilians reported killed that was between 43,906 and 48,755. In this article, the methodologies utilized to get some of the estimates will be described, 
along with their limitations, the way to interpret the results and if possible, how to compare them.