The survey - by public heath experts who went door-to-door - asked Iraqis if, and how, their relatives had died.
Today, Downing Street dismissed the report saying the researchers used an extrapolation technique, which they considered inappropriate, rather than a detailed body count.
Coalition forces have never kept a record of civilian deaths in Iraq – that responsibility, they say, lies with the Iraqi interim government.
The Iraq Ministry of Health has estimated 3000 civilian deaths, but they've only been counting for six months.
Another figure - over 16 000 since the conflict began - comes from a project called Iraqbodycount. Their estimate is based on reported casualties.
This latest study comes up with a very different number: nearly 100,000 extra civilian deaths since war began - possibly more.
So where did they get it from?
Researchers chose households at random from locations throughout Iraq.
988 families were interviewed about births and deaths before and after the conflict.
Pre-invasion they recorded 46 deaths.
After war began, deaths rose to 142 - a two and a half fold increase.
By extrapolating the results of the household survey to the entire population of Iraq, they estimated total casualties at 98,000.
"We were not expecting the level of deaths from violence that we found in this study and we hope this will lead to some serious discussions of how military and political aims can be achieved in a way that is not so detrimental to civilians populations"
Gilbert Burnham, researcher
But without bodies, can we trust the body count?
Higher than average civilian casualties in Fallujah strongly distorted this study making the nationwide average well over 100 thousand so families surveyed there were discounted from the final figure.
The reliability of interviews must be questioned too, though four out of five families were able to produce a death certificate.
The definition of civilian is also unclear.
The majority of violent deaths were among young men who may - or may not - have been insurgents.
But the study's main weakness, and the one highlighted by Downing Street in dismissing today's figures, is that it multiplies a small sample across the whole of Iraq.
A country at war, where people are aggrieved and displaced from their homes, makes household based surveys far less accurate.
Given the worsening security situation, it'll be a long time before we have an accurate picture for civilian losses in Iraq, if ever.
But that figure is undeniably growing all the time.
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