'Excess' Death Toll Has Reached 655,000

The Washington Post reports on a Johns Hopkins study claiming that "655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred." 600,000 of these excess deaths are attributed to violence and disease. That works out to about 500 per day over the last 3.5 years and accounts for about 2% of the population of Iraq.

Amazingly, the news coverage of Iraq with their emphasis on the violence and death toll seems to have missed this. The Iraq Coalition Casualties site tracks the civilian death toll according to the media, and finds 10,300 for 2006. At 500 per day, we would expect well over 140,000 for the year. So in reporting this study, is the Post arguing the absolute, total incompetence of the news media that well over 130,000 deaths this year have been missed? (For comparison, this is about the same as the death toll from the Hiroshima bomb.)