yah..the way they came up with the number is they took surveys from a few places in iraq, checking with families, hospitals, morgues and such to find out how many people in that area died. After getting what they felt was a sufficient sample, they extrapolated it to the entire country which gave them that 655,000 number (or 2.5% of the population). This is the second time they've done it. The first time they had a smaller sampling and came up with a much smaller number, in the 200,000s. So it's hard to say what it could be.
The iraqi death count web site gets its numbers from morgues and hospitals...though many iraqies are so used to death they just bury their dead without bothering to make it official.
Regardless...too many have died..