...because one of the things we know about war zones is that casualties are under-reported, usually by a factor of more than five.

Really? How do they know that?

One of the things that makes me suspicious of the original interviews is the unusually sunny numbers from the pre-war period. Out of 12,801 people interviewed, there were two violent deaths reported, both by some sort of military action. This is a murder rate of zero.

This is not impossible--the murder rate in the U.S. floats around 6 per 100,000, and when factored into 13,000 people, that is less than one. But it does raise the eyebrows.