It's good journalism of the fact-check mode. In a quick read, I didn't see any opinions from, or even list of, groups referenced thus: "made available to academic and scientific groups in April 2007 as was planned from the inception of the study." If no groups asked for the data, or received it but didn't respond, that should have been noted.

The piece methodically examines criticism of the Lancet report on excess Iraqi deaths following the invasion and into the occupation. The many attacks from the pro-war right wing corporate media are examined one by one, and essentially discredited. Pro-war propaganda gets benefits from no count or a low count of deaths; valid scientific estimates with error bounds stated seem to be viewed as a threat to war support. Especially when the estimate is a million. This article is a trifle tedious, but is an important work of support for truth in journalism.

This opinion piece has a veneer of balance, but in reality is highly slanted. For one thing, the Lancet article the author of this blog supports has no credibility. It was given rush publication with no review in order to influence the U.S. 2004 Presidential election. Period. The reputation of The Lancet has suffered serious damage from this and other partisan articles. No credible scientific journal accepts the Lancet article as having any validity. The statistical error bars of the study are huge, and statisticians universally consider the uncertainties to make the study worthless. This opinion piece is uninformed about statistics and thus has little merit as journalism.