More Iraqis killed since 2003 than in 20 years under Hussein.

[PatCox]

Of course, you have to consider the source, the well known hotbed of communist propaganda, the Wall Street Journal.

Anyway, I am personally proud to see Freedom on the March.

No wonder they are so grateful to us for freeing them.

[LeeG]

at some point folks will start examining the political factors in the US that made invasion possible and not just the external reasons we were given, ie. he's bad, wmd, futurewmd,potential wmd, links to al qaeda(anyone with half a brain should be embarassed over believing that one), draining swamp, wacking hornets,swatting flies, bringing democracy, ad nauseum. At some point.

[uncas]

PatCox
I'd take that with a grain of salt. In my googling, I have seen one report that took all of those killed under Saddam's regime and divided that number by the years/days he was in office. It came out to slightly more than 100 people a day over a 20 yr period.

[Norman Bernstein]

More of the same, courtesy of Johns Hopkins University:




THE DEATH RATE IN IRAQ....A team at Johns Hopkins has done another study of the post-invasion death rate in Iraq: (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html)
A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates 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.

....Of the total 655,000 estimated "excess deaths," 601,000 resulted from violence....Of the violent deaths that occurred after the invasion, 31 percent were caused by coalition forces or airstrikes, the respondents said.
This is remarkable. If you do the arithmetic, it means that coalition forces have killed 186,000 Iraqis in the 39 months between the invasion and the period when the study was done. That's about 4,700 per month — and the numbers are on a steady upward trend.

This study was done by the same team that did a similar "cluster sampling" analysis in 2004 that generated a huge amount of controversy. As near as I can tell, though, their methodology turned out to be sound and the objections mostly didn't hold water. (For example, they were accused of inflating the figures by including a cluster from Fallujah, which had just gone through a horrific battle. In fact, they specifically excluded the Fallujah cluster for exactly that reason.) This time around, the figures from their new study buttress the previous one, and also match up with other data, which suggests their methodology is on target.

There is, of course, a fair amount of inherent uncertainty in this study. There's a roughly 10% chance the true figure could be half the reported size and a 10% chance it could be double the reported size. Still, the most likely figure is the one the Johns Hopkins team reported, and if it's accurate it means that coalition troops are killing nearly 5,000 Iraqis per month. That's truly an astonishing number.

[PatCox]

Freedom is messy, isn't it?

[uncas]

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists

epidemiologists...No skin off their teeth I guess. I mean, why epidemiologists? Why not forensic scientists?
Of all the specialties, epidemiologists? Sounds a little strange to me.

[LeeG]

PatCox
I'd take that with a grain of salt. In my googling, I have seen one report that took all of those killed under Saddam's regime and divided that number by the years/days he was in office. It came out to slightly more than 100 people a day over a 20 yr period.

ok, going by that all we need to do is stick around for another 16yrs or are you saying that since there haven't been as many iraqis killed in 4yrs that Saddam killed in 16 it's not that bad?

[Norman Bernstein]

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists

epidemiologists...No skin off their teeth I guess. I mean, why epidemiologists? Why not forensic scientists?
Of all the specialties, epidemiologists? Sounds a little strange to me.

No, an epidemiologist is precisely the sort of scientist who would do an investigation like that. Death is not dissimilar from disease; you look at the statistical patterns, the way it spreads, and so on. It's really an applied statistics analysis.

A forensic scientist would be looking at individuals, not populations.

[Milo Christensen]

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists

epidemiologists...No skin off their teeth I guess. I mean, why epidemiologists? Why not forensic scientists?
Of all the specialties, epidemiologists? Sounds a little strange to me.

Jesus, Uncas, are you really that stupid, or just pretending? It's an epidemic of violent death by lead poisoning, who the f-ck else is going to study it? It's the same methodology for figuring out how many died due to a plague.

[uncas]

Epidemiology is the scientific study of factors affecting the health and illness of populations, and serves as the foundation and logic of interventions made in the interest of public health and preventive medicine. It is considered a cornerstone methodology of public health research, and is highly regarded in evidence-based medicine for identifying risk factors for disease and determining optimal treatment approaches to clinical practice.

Nuf said. Eeath by violent means is not an illness.

[Norman Bernstein]

Epidemiology is the scientific study of factors affecting the health and illness of populations, and serves as the foundation and logic of interventions made in the interest of public health and preventive medicine. It is considered a cornerstone methodology of public health research, and is highly regarded in evidence-based medicine for identifying risk factors for disease and determining optimal treatment approaches to clinical practice.

Nuf said. Eeath by violent means is not an illness.

That may indeed be the 'strict' definition.... but I don't think that epidemiology is inappropriate for a study like this. It's statistical analysis of a large population.... who else would be better prepared?

Anyhow, what's the point? Are you doubting the validity of the study?

[uncas]

Norman..okay I'll be hoest. I'm not sure. I think the numbers are a bit high. But, I have a lot of respect for Johns Hopkins.
Extrapolation based on known data doers not always hold true.

Have there been too many deaths? Yes, I don't disagree. Have there been 600,000 I don't know.

[Milo Christensen]

Jamie (but not Jami); I'm sorry if my first post was harsh. I get frustrated by the widespread lack of understanding of statistical methodology for measuring.

It seems to me (with my Master's degree in Statistics) that the methodology of this study is extremely sound.

And extended to the stated goals of our excursion in Iraq, extremely unsettling, to say the least.

[uncas]

Milo.
No problem. I understand your rant but I do have a tendency to question.
To me, stats can be manipulated.. It depends on the questions asked, the data collected and who is putting the information together and how they are putting it together..

[LeeG]

Uncas, a simple reason we might not know is that we don't see and recognize photos of Iraqis every week in the paper or on the news like you'd see with US personell.

There aren't western journalists out in the field taking photos and printing them,,and for the ones that weren't attacked, kidnapped or killed we tend to dismiss them because they're sympathetic to the Iraqis. Remember the Italian journalist Sgrena? she was kidnapped and survived a checkpoint but her rescuer didn't. In that entire incident was there ever an impression the foreign journalists were doing a necessary job? When Christian Scientist correspondent Jill Carroll was kidnapped and released all manner of criticisms were heaped upon her.
There's a reason we don't know. It's information that does not support the liberation paradigm. The last one standing after wmd/links/democracy were left dangling.

As news consumers we skew what we want to hear, the bias isn't entirely in the hands of the wascally editor at the top of the Daily Planet, murdoch, liberal media or conniving politicians. WE have a bias that prefers some kinds of news over others.

[uncas]

LeeG
Good point!

[PatCox]

Actually, according to the study, twice as many Iraqis have died since we invaded, than died during 20 years of Husseins reign. I missed that part.

Freedom is marching twice as hard as I thought.

[High C]

Do the math on this one, and you get more questions.

The study claims that the pre-invasion death rate in Iraq was 143,000 a year. Given a population of 26 million, this would mean that life expectancy in Iraq was 181 years. Hmmm....

Perhaps this explains the odd numbers:
"The figures are based on a survey conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad between May and June of 1,849 households including 12,801 household members in 47 randomly selected sites across Iraq."

[ljb5]

No problem. I understand your rant but I do have a tendency to question.
To me, stats can be manipulated.. It depends on the questions asked, the data collected and who is putting the information together and how they are putting it together..

It's nice that you can admit this now. I wish you'd come to this realization four years ago!

It's not at all surprising or suspicious that this study was done by epidemiologists. Mostly what epidemiologists study is data: medical records hospital admission reports, statistics collected by the government or non-government agencies, morbidity and mortality tables, death certificates, birth certificates...

They don't usually do laboratory work, like a pathologist does with a microscope and a chemistry set.

In the past, I've seen research by epidemiologists on lots of non-disease health issue such as the use of seatbelts and bike helmets, hours of TV per day, the types of helmets used in hockey, etc.

Having said that, I think there are some serious problems with the cluster sampling methodology, especially in an inhomogenous population that is experiencing massive disruption....

...then again, we're talking about Iraq. Everything is screwed up over there. Kinda makes it difficult to go door to door to collect the data. If cluster sampling is the best we can do, then that's what well have to use.

I suspect the researchers included a lengthy discussion of their methodology and acknowledged its potential faults and the steps they took to minimize them.

[uncas]

It's nice that you can admit this

I always admit when I am wrong. I do it all of the time..umm....

Nuf said. You get the message ljb5

[PatCox]

High C, you are assuming an even age distribution among the population in coming up with that life expectancy rate. In fact, the Iraqi population was extremely young, I believe the average age was in the low teens. Almost all populations have lower numbers of old people and higher numbers of young people, so you can't just divide the population by 70 years to get annual deaths.

[Vernon Hunt]

But 70% of the people killed in Iraq were killed by insurgents.

[High C]

High C, you are assuming an even age distribution among the population in coming up with that life expectancy rate. In fact, the Iraqi population was extremely young, I believe the average age was in the low teens. Almost all populations have lower numbers of old people and higher numbers of young people, so you can't just divide the population by 70 years to get annual deaths.

I understand that, but three times as great?

Why was the average Iraqi age so low in the first place?

[PatCox]

Yes, only 180,000 were killed by our troops or air strikes. Hooray for us. My arm is out of joint from patting myself on the back.

[Vernon Hunt]

Not mine

[uncas]

okay I'm gonna ask and then duck.
Among the Iraqiis, who puts Iraq first and religion second? Who puts religious sects first and Iraq ( the country ) second.
As I see it, in the Kurdish region, the Iraqii flag has been banned. Are they Iraqiis or Kurds?
When we talk about Iraqiis are we just referring to those who live between certain borders which make up a country.

Now off and ducking at the same time.

[LeeG]

for those who are having problems with numbers here's a website that was available in 2003. You only had to look. It wasn't on Fox or PBS. The numbers aren't that large but each one is accounted for. The people involved in this survey were continuing work in reporting what was going on on the ground. After a couple years I noticed that Iraqis and those following al Jazeera saw photos of dead Iraqis. We occasionally saw neat postage stamp sized photos of US dead in western media but rarely.
Think about the consequences OVER YEARS. Even when presented with strong methodology it's hard to accept. Even with reports of 100's of bodies piling up in a few days in river culverts the numbers are debatable. When the morgue in Bagdad is stockping 1000's of bodies,,,somehow the numbers are hard to accept.
As consumers of news we prefer some news over others. Coke and Pepsi sell better than no-name brands at the bar.


http://civilians.info/iraq/

[PatCox]

High, in any population, the age distribution tends to form a "pyramid" shape. It has to do with reproduction and population increase being hyperbolic functions, not straight lines. 2 people have 6 kids, 36 grandkids, 200 great grandkids, and so on. After three generations you have 2 people who are 70, 6 who are 50, 36 who are 30, and 200 or so who are 10. The introduction of modern medicine into a previously backward area can make this very dramatic.

[Bob Adams]

But 70% of the people killed in Iraq were killed by insurgents.

Doesn't matter. It's our fault. Seriously, how many of thier own do you think they would kill without outside "policing"?

[Milo Christensen]

POTUS is rejecting the results of this survey in his quite disturbingly semi-coherent press conference.

[LeeG]

okay I'm gonna ask and then duck.
Among the Iraqiis, who puts Iraq first and religion second? Who puts religious sects first and Iraq ( the country ) second.
As I see it, in the Kurdish region, the Iraqii flag has been banned. Are they Iraqiis or Kurds?
When we talk about Iraqiis are we just referring to those who live between certain borders which make up a country.

Now off and ducking at the same time.

that's a fine question. When you remove all authority and police/military control what happens next?
When the Rodney King riots happened were they LosAngelinos or Americans rioting?

You gotta look at your assumptions as to what constitutes a country.
The adminstration has been tossing around words like they represent reality.
"but honey, you know I love you" the boy says to the girl
"but honey, you know I love you" the philandering spouse says to the other.

When the adminstration says "the Iraqi gov't" it's not a gov't running anything.
When the administration says "wmd" they are saying anything that's scary and can fit into a sentence.
When the administration said "terrists" it conveniently conflated people as different as mafia is from motorcycle clubs.

So if you were a devoted Catholic what would you put first, your belief in God or your belief in GWBush to work within the Constitution?

[LeeG]

POTUS is rejecting the results of this survey in his quite disturbingly semi-coherent press conference.


he's quite aware of fashion and what the reporters are wearing..

[Norman Bernstein]

okay I'm gonna ask and then duck.
Among the Iraqiis, who puts Iraq first and religion second? Who puts religious sects first and Iraq ( the country ) second.
As I see it, in the Kurdish region, the Iraqii flag has been banned. Are they Iraqiis or Kurds?
When we talk about Iraqiis are we just referring to those who live between certain borders which make up a country.

Now off and ducking at the same time.

The problem is that we speak of Iraq as if it were a genuine country, i.e., tied together by some commonalities... language, culture, religion, political philosophy, geography, or what have you....

When in fact, it never had such attributes... it existed only because a ruthless dictator was in control. Absent the dicatator, it's not a nation at all, just a collection of highly disparate interests, tribes, and warring factions.

And our President and his neo-cons think that we can force-feed this mixed collection of adversaries this concept of 'freedom and democracy', a concept utterly foreign to them, like we would force-feed a goose to produce foie gras.

I only wonder just how long this will go on before any of these guys accept responsibility for their failure, and stop the loss of American soldiers, fortune, and respect throughout the world.

[High C]

High, in any population, the age distribution tends to form a "pyramid" shape. It has to do with reproduction and population increase being hyperbolic functions, not straight lines. 2 people have 6 kids, 36 grandkids, 200 great grandkids, and so on. After three generations you have 2 people who are 70, 6 who are 50, 36 who are 30, and 200 or so who are 10. The introduction of modern medicine into a previously backward area can make this very dramatic.


Yeah, yeah, but only 143,000 annual deaths in a population of 26 million? The death rate in the US, adjusted for population size, is nearly double that. No way that's accurate in a poor, violent, nation. This whole study is based on this number, and it seems impossible. Not to mention the survey methodology.

[PatCox]

Petty kinda guy, isn't he? Still at the frat house, belittling the poor kids who don't know how to dress for the country club.

[LeeG]

Listening to GW on CSPAN

"we're gonna get the job done"

what a whiny mofo

"I like to be clear"

[Gonzalo]

I only wonder just how long this will go on before any of these guys accept responsibility for their failure.... A politician accepting responsibility is so rare it makes news, sort of like the old saw about "man bites dog." McNamarra admitted his errors concerning Viet Nam, about 35 years too late, but have you heard Henry Kissenger lately? He is as absolutely right now about that war as he was then.

[JimD]

...at some point folks will start examining the political factors in the US...

Folks can (and sometimes do) examine all they want. As long as they are a day late and a dollar short with their examinations nothing will change. In any of the democracies all any politician need do, and in fact all they ever try to do is fool enough of the people enough of the time.

[LeeG]

and the straw is a middle aged gay Congressman taking away the strength of the motivated religious right. That's the tipping point. Bizarre.

[uncas]

So, going on the premise that Iraq is a fabricated country. Which I have posted ad nausium. I say, give 1/3 of it to Turkey, 1/3 to Syria, and let the Kurds have their own country. Which would really anger the Turks.

This also leads to the question what is an insurgent? As it stands, the insurgents are Suunis, Kurds, and Shiites. They may have been born withoin the boundaries of Iraq but to them, they are not Iraqiis.

[ljb5]

So, going on the premise that Iraq is a fabricated country. Which I have posted ad nausium. I say, give 1/3 of it to Turkey, 1/3 to Syria, and let the Kurds have their own country. Which would really anger the Turks.

This also leads to the question what is an insurgent? As it stands, the insurgents are Suunis, Kurds, and Shiites. They may have been born withoin the boundaries of Iraq but to them, they are not Iraqiis.

Jamie, I really think you're on to something here.... unfortunately, like all possible plans now, it would have a lot of drawbacks.

A couple of years ago, in my thread, "What to do in Iraq now," I made a similar suggestion.

Your question about Iraqi identity and allegiance is also very good. I honestly don't have the answer to it --- but I wish someone had bothered to ask the question four years ago.

At the time, they told us this would be a quick surgical transplant. All they would have to do is cut off the head, replace it with someone more to our liking and the body and major organs would continue as before.

[uncas]

ljb5
Just to tease you a bit..Are you actually saying I may be on the right track... My God.. my heart... I can't take it. :)

Seriously, I have posted how Iraq became a country several times. No one in the late teens and early 20's took religion into account when creating Iraq.
We are dealing with the garbage such division has caused.

But you are good, in your post, you mentioned this x number of years ago so I guess the acolades for saying it FIRST go to you.

I really do love it when you give a compliment and then immediately take it away by saying " I thought of it first "

[ljb5]

I really do love it when you give a compliment and then immediately take it away by saying " I thought of it first "

My intention wasn't to give you a compliment, but rather to analyze the similarities of our positions.

I don't really care if it offends you or not. As always, I'm more interested in policy and current events than your emotional state.

The important thing here is that we need a plan for dealing with Iraq.

The current plan isn't working. Both you and I were able to come up with better plans -- but nobody in charge would even consider it.

They still think it's going well and that invading a foreign country is no different than taking the kids to Disney World.

[uncas]

Figures..you wouldn't compliment a dog if it came back when it was called.
Damn, how high is your pedestal or your ego...? Do you ever suffer from lack of oxygen?

You are a piece of work.

[ljb5]

Cripes, Jamie... why are you so emotionally needy?

I come here to discuss news, politics and current events. For me, this is like reading the newspaper or watching the evening news.

Do you compliment the weatherman when he makes an accurate forecast?

Do you fawn over the anchor when he reads a story well?

Do you send fan mail to the commentator when he makes an insight?

Why the heck should I compliment you?

Considering the million other things you've screwed up in the last few years, I'm not going to send you any love letters for getting something right.

[uncas]

BS ljb5
You came here to push your agenda and that is all.. As always....
Everything from you boils down to mee...mmeee.. I'm always right! I'm perfect...When are the rest of us going to agree?

Have a good life... Someone this set in his ways needs a prayer or two.

Oh I don't send fan mail but then again, I am not paid for posting.

[Keith Wilson]

Nobody gets paid for posting.

[uncas]

Keith..
references please! It may be against the rules but who is to say it isn't done.

Bottom line.. I have more respect for my dog than ljb5.

[ljb5]

Bottom line.. I have more respect for my dog than ljb5.

Fine by me.... but don't throw a fit when I don't slather you with compliments.


Everything from you boils down to mee...mmeee.. I'm always right! I'm perfect...When are the rest of us going to agree?

Nothing could be further from the truth! It's never about me. I keep myself completely removed from the subject matter.

You are the one who keeps asking about me and trying to make it personal. You are the one who starts threads about me and demands personal information. I keep myself removed.

[Milo Christensen]

I keep myself removed.

Not removed quite far enough, though.

[uncas]

ljb5
You didn't in fact you retracted it..if it ever existed.

does this look familiar?

My intention wasn't to give you a compliment, (ljb5)

And no where on this thread have I asked for anything personal. I know to do so is beating my head against the wall. And it ain't worth asking.. and any answer would be questionable so why bother?

To me, you are a politicaL TROLL. prove me wrong..Otherwise shut up.

[LeeG]

back to the topic,,,is Iraq better now than when Saddam was running the show.
NOT is the story of democracy better, not is a dictatorship better but is IRAQ and the people called Iraqis in a better or worse situation than before invasion?

[ljb5]

To me, you are a politicaL TROLL. prove me wrong..Otherwise shut up.

I don't care what you think of me. I don't have to prove anything to you... and I certainly don't have to shut up just because you say so.

You've got no authority on this forum or over me.

Get over yourself. :rolleyes:

--------------------------------------------------------------

Lee, back to the subject matter --- I'm not sure if Iraq is better now than it was under Saddam.... but that's not really the relevant question.

The relevant question is: "Is Iraq better now than it would have been if we had done the right thing."

Saddam was a jerk, we all know that. The goal of our policy ought not to be slightly less awful than Saddam... the goal is to be as good as we can be.

If you see someone get stabbed in the gut, you don't walk up to him, punch him in the face and say, "was that better or worse than what the last guy did?"

You help him.

[LeeG]

Kinda hard to help terrists and the kind of people who brung us 9/11.
Iraq is an evil empire, why help an evil empire?
The insurgents are terrists, why help terrists?
Saddam had links to Osama and WMD, why help that?

This is the fruit of the Republican platform meeting neo-con disinformation (it's ok to lie to the sheeple in order to lead them).

No nation building means something.
Strong military doesn't do any good unless you use it.
Alliances like the UN are pre-9/11
Unilateral action is post 911.
Habeus corpus and Geneva Conventions are pre 9/11
Unitary Executive and Signing Statements are post 9/11.

And GW is saying "I like to be clear"

at some point folks are going to think "I don't give a flying duck what you feel, do it right or get out of the way"

[PatCox]

Iraq is definitely worse now than under Hussein. But if this were a temporary and necessary state of affairs on the way to something better, that could be acceptable. Unfortunately, there is no plan, map. or foreseeable or likely progression to anything better.

If we leave now, civil war will break out, Iran will aid the shiites, and they will either wipe out the sunni in a slaughter of ethnic cleansing, or some other regional power will come in and aid the sunni, and slaughter will continue, hell, I just don't see anything good.

Just conceivably, I suppose, the end of the US occupation could allow a resurgence of Iraqi nationalism that would allow them to overcome their religious, ethnic, and tribal fueds.

Or we could stay, but it seems to me that our presence actually exacerbates their pre-existing fueding tenedencies, so we would stay and preside over a low level civil war until, when?

Or, we could, as Uncas suggests, split the country up. But we don't want to give the Kurdish oil to the Turks (or the Kurds, either, as the Turks hate them. And we don't want to give the rest of the oil to the Iranian shiites, who would effectively rule the oil-rich shia area. Noone would care about the sunni areas as they have no oil.

What is there to do?

[uncas]

ljb5
Typical..If you don't want to prove it to me, prove that you are not just a political troll to the rest of the 12000 members.

Now the subject...
There is no easy answer. We are there. We have to pull out but we have to pull out with some direction some plan.. If we listen to various parties, both sides agree but no one has come up with a plan.
I don't think we can just pull out and let the cards fall.. Regardless of party there has to be a plan. I do not agree with staying the course but damn, if I can come up with a solution that satisfies everyone. I seriously doubt whether the dems have a plan to pull out either but their position is no worse than the republicans.

Souns like Viet Nam...

[LeeG]

the whole partition idea gets screwey considering the number of intermarriages and make up of Bagdad. My vote is entropy.

[uncas]

I don't think that there are too many intermarriages between sects. That would be the equiv. of being ex-cummunicated or killed.

[LeeG]

there are many urban Iraqi marriages with shia/sunni. This is from general reading. If you want I'll look out references. It's not insignificant and reflects modern urban values replacing religious identities in big cities/universities.
Think of the difference between a small town in Iowa and a small town on the edge of Seattle or DC.
Bagdad is not Basra or Falluja.

[John of Phoenix]

If you want to keep the Iranians out of Iraq you're going to have to invade Iran. But that was the plan all along.
James Baker and his Iraq Study Group will have this all figured out shortly after the midterm elections.

Here's the good news - given the effectiveness of Shock and Awe, think of all the Iraqis we haven't killed.
(Not to mention all the schools we've painted.)

What a cluster f#<%.

[LeeG]

misc. q&a between Juan Cole, professor of Iraq Shia and Rajiv Chandrasekaran WaPo correspondent and author about Greenzone in Bagdad

http://www.juancole.com/2006/10/interview-with-rajiv-chandrasekaran.html

[Gonzalo]

there are many urban Iraqi marriages with shia/sunni. This is from general reading. There was something about this on NPR yesterday about how families from each sect are being forced by the militias to move out of mixed neighborhoods into segregated areas, sort of like what happened in Sarajevo. Mixed families are SOL because they aren't accepted by either side.

[Nicholas Carey]

Yeah, yeah, but only 143,000 annual deaths in a population of 26 million? The death rate in the US, adjusted for population size, is nearly double that. No way that's accurate in a poor, violent, nation. This whole study is based on this number, and it seems impossible. Not to mention the survey methodology.That's deaths over and above the pre-war mortality rate -- deaths caused by our invasion, either directly (air strike, M-60 burst, etc.) or indirectly (no sanitary water supply -> typhus -> death, car bomb in the market, etc.).

[edited to note that according to the CDC, the mortality rate in the US is 8.167 per thousand population as opposed to Iraq's pre-war mortality rate of 5.5 per 1,000 -- thanks, universal health care! :D -- and according to the study, the mortality rate for the year ended June 2006 was 19.8 per thousand.]

Here's the study from The Lancet, published today: http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf

Here's the Wall Street Journal piece: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116052896787288831-8l5AMVpCdg07M3w6XdmTXoPuzno_20061109.html

And the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/world/middleeast/11casualties.html , which has this to say:
The study uses a method similar to that employed in estimates of casualty figures in other conflict areas like Darfur and Congo. It sought to measure the number of deaths that occurred as a result of the war.

It argues that absolute numbers of dead, like morgue figures, could not give a full picture of the “burden of conflict on an entire population,” because they were often incomplete.

The mortality rate before the American invasion was about 5.5 people per 1,000 per year, the study found. That rate rose to 19.8 deaths per 1,000 people in the year ending in June.

Gunshots were the largest cause of death, the study said, at 56 percent of all violent deaths, while car bombs accounted for about 13 percent. Deaths caused by the American military declined as an overall percentage from March 2003 to June 2006.

[Memphis Mike]

NPR stated today that 654,000 Iraqi civilians have died thus far. Not to worry, though. The Dubya said it's a lie.

[Rick Clark]

NPR stated today that 654,000 Iraqi civilians have died thus far. Not to worry, though. The Dubya said it's a lie.

Doe's Dubyw know how many military deaths are each day, NOT US personal?:confused:

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

What a crock. I'm sure it was closer to 500,000. The media are such liars.

[Tom Montgomery]

I was listening to the Canadian program "The World" on NPR while driving home from work. They stated that 655,000 is not a hard and fast number. The result of the study actually was a range. From The Lancet:

"We estimate that between March 18, 2003, and June, 2006, an additional 654,965 (392,979–942,636) Iraqis have died above what would have been expected on the basis of the pre-invasion crude mortality rate as a consequence of the coalition invasion. Of these deaths, we estimate that 601,027 (426,369–793,663) were due to violence."

So the range is 392,979–942,636. What is significant is not the exact number of deaths but the scale.

[ishmael]

Look folks, no matter the numbers this is a mess. We broke it, now we've bought it.

What are we going to do now? It's a horrible conundrum, and as the US is the major player, and the US is so strong, it is a matter for all of us in the west.

I'm reminded of Jefferson's take on slavery at the time of our 1789 constitution. He was in Paris, but made a comment or two. "It's like having a wolf by the ears. You don't like it, but you musn't let it go."

[Norman Bernstein]

What are we going to do now? It's a horrible conundrum, and as the US is the major player, and the US is so strong, it is a matter for all of us in the west.."

Thre are no good solutions. Every proposed solution is a bad one.

The worst solution of all is 'stay the course'...

That's Bush's solution. Having observed that 'stay the course' results in no stability, just continuing death and violence, he does what some would define as insanity: he keeps doing the same thing, hoping for a different result.

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

I have to admit at this point that staying the course is some fashion or another is the only way to go... pull out, and the country goes into civil war, which is where it already on a smaller scale. The future of the middle east is hanging on this one. What a colossal foreign policy fuckup this will go down as.

[Milo Christensen]

So the range is 392,979–942,636. What is significant is not the exact number of deaths but the scale.

The low end of the range of this study is still more than ten times what POTUS says it is. The 655K number is well within the confidence level for this kind of research but it's more than ten times what the Iraqis say it is.

Who's lying? American politicians and the puppet regime in Iraq, both of whom are dependent on their continuing existence in power of "staying the course" or people whose entire lives have been devoted to reducing human suffering? Who's lying? I want to know who's lying? I've been forced to ask the question; "Who's lied to us before?" I don't like the answer I keep coming up with.

[LeeG]

Peter, the solution will most likely be a series of reports on how well the Iraqi military is taking over and we'll concentrate on Bagdad with the civil war bubbling up around. At this rate by 2010 we'll probably have spent a trillion on the effort and Iraq will have lost a million people.
Unless of course the "Iraqi Gov't" asks us to leave right before the 2008 election.

In the meantime I'd like to introduce the POTUS

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061011-5.html

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Back on Iraq. A group of American and Iraqi health officials today released a report saying that 655,000 Iraqis have died since the Iraq war. That figure is 20 times the figure that you cited in December, at 30,000. Do you care to amend or update your figure, and do you consider this a credible report?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I don't consider it a credible report. Neither does General Casey and neither do Iraqi officials. I do know that a lot of innocent people have died, and that troubles me and it grieves me. And I applaud the Iraqis for their courage in the face of violence. I am amazed that this is a society which so wants to be free that they're willing to -- that there's a level of violence that they tolerate. And it's now time for the Iraqi government to work hard to bring security in neighborhoods so people can feel at peace.

No question, it's violent, but this report is one -- they put it out before, it was pretty well -- the methodology was pretty well discredited. But I talk to people like General Casey and, of course, the Iraqi government put out a statement talking about the report.

Q -- the 30,000, Mr. President? Do you stand by your figure, 30,000?

THE PRESIDENT: You know, I stand by the figure. A lot of innocent people have lost their life -- 600,000, or whatever they guessed at, is just -- it's not credible. Thank you.

[Tom Montgomery]

"...this report is one -- they put it out before, it was pretty well -- the methodology was pretty well discredited."

Really?

[LeeG]

sure, GW has the special intel. He knows when something is bs.
Whenever someone brings up data that's not supportive it's really just guessing. It's what the CIA does. Give the prez a break, he's working hard.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040921-9.html

Q Right here, Mr. President, thank you. Why do you think the CIA's assessment of conditions in Iraq are so much at odds with the optimism that you and Prime Minister Allawi are expressing at the moment?

PRESIDENT BUSH: The CIA laid out a -- several scenarios that said, life could be lousy, like could be okay, life could be better. And they were just guessing as to what the conditions might be like. The Iraqi citizens are defying the pessimistic predictions. The Iraqi citizens are headed toward free elections. This government has been in place for a little over two months, and the Iraqi citizens are seeing a determined effort by responsible citizens to lead to a more hopeful tomorrow. And I am optimistic we'll succeed.

Listen, I understand how tough it is. The Prime Minister understands how tough it is -- he has to live with the few who are trying to stop the aspirations of the many. And we are -- we're standing with the Iraqi people because it's in our nation's interests to do so. We're standing with the people of this good country because we understand that, as Prime Minister has said, that we must defeat them there; otherwise we'll face them here at home.

And we'll prevail. We will succeed. It's an historic opportunity. And that's why I'm so honored to be with the Prime Minister. It's an historic opportunity not only to change this good country for the better and secure America, but it's an historic opportunity to set example for people in the broader Middle East that free societies can, and will, exist.

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

"The CIA laid out a -- several scenarios that said, life could be lousy, like could be okay, life could be better. "


and this guy is the President of the United States. Yoicks.

[mdh]

Assenine, liberal, BS.
Epidemiologists? Where's the rest of the numbers? How many were killed by Americans? Shuni's? Sia's? Irani's?


War is hell. Hell. Hell. You try not to visit it upon yourself.

You liberals are so repulsive. We've finally got somebody who'll get off their ass and lead, and all you can do is denigrate. You don't offer solutions, just criticism. You twist and turn everything (you're speaking of our troops, you're calling them murderers) till you manipulate any news to support your cynicism. It's the U.S.'s fault.

I'm not saying that what is going on in Iraq is wonderful, but if they instituted my ideas, you'd surely have a caniption. But to try to say what is going on there now is worse than Saddam is assenine. I don't believe it, and niether will the majority of voters.

[LeeG]

mdh, you better not read the news then.

1. take the weakest dictatorship when actually our allies provide the breeding ground for anti-west jihadism.

2. destroy said evil regime and anything that provided order in that country even though it has nothing to do with anti-west jihadism
3. watch militias fill the power vacuum.

4. watch the president lie about the basis for war and then dismiss the situation as presented by the new and improved intelligence organization in '04 and dismiss estimates of Iraqi dead from civil war. Most of the deaths are Iraqi/Iraqi now.

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

Well, I guess MDH sure told us. Do you think those dead Iraqi's are listening? Surely they must be.

[Memphis Mike]

Oh look. Another Kool Aid drinker.

[mdh]

Did I hear a solution there. NO. Cut and run? Don't do today what you can put off till your kids or grandkids are dead? Then blame somebody.

[BrianW]

I'm not buying the 600,000 number. No other source, even sources that want big numbers, comes anywhere near 600,000.

[LeeG]

Brian, would you buy that there's a civil war where Iraqis are killing Iraqis?

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

Nope. Not Brian. His wallet is staying where it is. A fool and his dubya are not easily parted.

[PeterSibley]

It's the U.S.'s fault.

You got something right .Something .

[Milo Christensen]

...I don't believe it...

Beware worshipping false gods.

[High C]

I'm not buying the 600,000 number. No other source, even sources that want big numbers, comes anywhere near 600,000.

None, not even the most radical anti-war groups, have come within even a tenth of that figure.

But hey, Johns Hopkins did a survey. :rolleyes:

It's sad what some folks are anxious to believe. :(

[LeeG]

High, Iraq Body Count collates and cross-references reports from open news sources.

Now think for a few seconds whether all deaths are reported. In a war zone. Where journalists are kidnapped or killed. Think a few more seconds.

GW has quoted them from a half year ago when the count was 38,000.
If IBC is a radical anti-war group then what is the count and methodology of a radical pro-war group?

[LeeG]

It's sad what some folks are anxious to believe. :(

Saddam supports al qaeda, has wmd and will give them away.
Rumsfeld didn't stifle discussion on post-invasion planning by the joint chiefs.
Wealthy Republican politicians are pro-life and wouldn't want their 18yr old daughters to get an abortion.

[TomF]

I heard the principal researcher for this study interviewed last night. The journalist pointed out that President Bush publicly questioned the credibility of the study.

The researcher laughed. She said that there are perhaps 40 or so epidemiologists and demographers in the world today who've done similar studies of deaths in war zones. The methodology is well established.

None of those 40 or so epidemiologists and demographers have stepped forwards questioning the study's findings, or its methodology. The only people who have done so are politicians, whose interests are not served by these findings.

FWIW, in their sampling interviews, they asked who lived in the house, their ages, if anyone'd been born during the period under survey, and if anyone'd died. If someone had died, they asked the circumstances, and if they could see a death certificate.

In 92% of all cases, they were shown a death certificate. There was a high concentration of deaths among young men, as one would expect in war situations.

As further corroboration, the researcher noted that Allied forces have estimated something like 2 million rounds of ammunition have been fired during this conflict (edit - I'd heard wrong. As Milo points out below, 1.8 billion rounds) - exclusive of explosives etc. If only one in three rounds found a target, that alone would more than account for the deaths.

[High C]

...In 92% of all cases, they were shown a death certificate....

But they compared present day deaths to a pre war figure of only 143,000 per year. Their entire claim relies on the accuracy of that figure. A figure which must've come from Hussein's government. A figure which is half the US death rate, in poor, violent, Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq?

[LeeG]

None, not even the most radical anti-war groups, have come within even a tenth of that figure.

But hey, Johns Hopkins did a survey. :rolleyes:

It's sad what some folks are anxious to believe. :(

"that figure" lies within a range between 420,000 and 790,000.

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/#position

again read how this number approx. 45,000 is derived. Back when it was 38,000 that was the number GW quoted. You tell me given GWs history dismissing reality based intel whether he'd gravitate to a high or low number.

Again this number comes from REPORTED deaths. Do you really think all Iraq/Iraqi deaths are reported?

[Donn]

If only one in three rounds found a target, that alone would more than account for the deaths.

If one in three rounds found, and killed a target, it would be the most remarkable rate of accuracy in the history of combat with firearms.

[Milo Christensen]

As further corroboration, the researcher noted that Allied forces have estimated something like 2 million rounds of ammunition have been fired during this conflict - exclusive of explosives etc. If only one in three rounds found a target, that alone would more than account for the deaths.

Probably be a good idea to take this paragraph out. Kill to rounds fired ratios are in the order of 1 to 10,000. Although I'd believe 2 mega rounds a week.

Edit: a quick google shows 1.8 billion rounds fired in Iraq.

[Norman Bernstein]

Something tells me that the argument about the potential accuracy of the numbers is kind of irrelevant... it's an attempt (admittedly, a fairly good one, in terms of trying to achieve some sort of scientific/statistical accuracy) to attach a metric to a concept.

The concept is simple: did (or does) the war in Iraq result in more deaths than if no war had been launched? And, if so, is the increase in mortality large?

It's not an unreasonable question; if you believed one of the arguments for the war (Saddam's killing of Kurds and others in the early 90's), then it's instructive to know if the war has killed overwhelmingly more people than Saddam killed. On that basis alone (ignoring all other factors, which I know is impossible to do), one could argue that the war has made things vastly worse, not better.

The phrase 'we had to destroy the village in order to save it' may be a bitter joke left over from the Vietnam era... but there was a point to it... something to do with an even more trite cliche about learning the lessons of history, or being condemned to repeat them.

[BrianW]

Again this number comes from REPORTED deaths. Do you really think all Iraq/Iraqi deaths are reported?

Well apparently, as according to the researchers, they were able to see death certificates 92% of the time.

Yet strangely enough, their figures still come out way higher than any other reporting agency, including the mighty UN.

MY wallet is staying in my back pocket for now. ;)

[Norman Bernstein]

Probably be a good idea to take this paragraph out. Kill to rounds fired ratios are in the order of 1 to 10,000. Although I'd believe 2 mega rounds a week.

Edit: a quick google shows 1.8 billion rounds fired in Iraq.

At a 10000:1 kill ratio, that suggests 180,000 deaths.... within an order of magnitude of the statistical analysis. Sounds not unreasonable to me.

[Chris Coose]

What sort of mass, what size pile would be made if you stacked up 250,000 bodies?
I'd like to see a photo of something like that.
I wished all Americans could see the ravage but we can't because there are no pictures because the cameras have been shut down by the bullets.

[ishmael]

This is arguing the color of the horse that left last month when the barn door was open and the mustangs were whinnying. It was brown, no I'm sure it was fawn, no it was grey.

Com'on folks, let's buck up and try to figure this out, not fight about what is wholly inconsequential just now. The causes, the players might fit in minor ways, but this before us is serious MOJO. What the hell are we going to do?

I'm reminded of Lincoln's exasperation when Mead didn't pursue Lee after his defeat at Gettysburg. If he'd pushed back that war might have ended two years earlier than it did. "The old man's like a duck who's been knocked on the head."

[TomF]

Ish,

Yes, this is talking about the colour of the horse which has already left the barn. How many Iraqis are now dead.

We're talking about it because some seem to think that the horse is still in the doorway ... that not too many Iraqis are dead, and perhaps fewer than Saddam might have killed anyhow.

A variety of us have already, in other threads, suggested options for what to do. I know I have, and Jamie has, and ljb5 has, and IIRC about 4 or 5 others. This thread isn't about what should we do now ... it's about the lethal consequences for Iraqis of starting this shooting war in the first place. It's about accountability.

[Milo Christensen]

... not fight about what is wholly inconsequential just now....

No, if we're being systematically lied to about how many people are dying in Iraq, then there should be consequences.

[LeeG]

[QUOTE=ishmael]This is arguing the color of the horse that left last month when the barn door was open and the mustangs were whinnying. It was brown, no I'm sure it was fawn, no it was grey.
QUOTE]

If you're going to advocate liberating people from a Stalinist dictator you really should have some metrics determining whether the liberated are better off.

You are aware that scientific methodologies are used to develop weapon systems, cluster bombs, treatment for wounds, allocation of resources etc.?

So maybe it's not that bad of an idea to count the color of the horses to determine which horse made it out of the barn before it burned down.

Jack, you have an obvious discomfort when specifics of an argument are engaged. Maybe this is a time for you to look deep within yourself and put that navel mirror to work.

[stevebaby]

If one in three rounds found, and killed a target, it would be the most remarkable rate of accuracy in the history of combat with firearms.The Johns Hopkins report published by The Lancet does not claim that all the deaths resulted from US forces shooting them.
The number of rounds fired by US forces is irrelevant.
What the report does state is the number of deaths resulting from the war which would not have occurred if the war had not happened.
Comparing the number of deaths pre and post invasion shows quite clearly what the effects on the civilian population have been.
The methodology used was the same methodology used to determine deaths in the Congo and Sudan.Noone questioned the methodology then.

[TomF]

High C, you commented earlier that the question is whether the pre-war death estimate was accurate, considering the character of Saddam-era Iraq. The article linked on the first page of this thread has an interesting comment on that:
Burnham said that the estimate of Iraq's pre-invasion death rate -- 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people -- found in both of the Hopkins surveys was roughly the same estimate used by the CIA and the U.S. Census Bureau. He said he believes that attests to the accuracy of his team's results.It's also instructive that this is the second survey done by this team on this topic - the first estimated war deaths in the first 18 months of the war. The estimate of a pre-war death rate of 5.5/1000 people was replicated in this second survey.

[stevebaby]

But they compared present day deaths to a pre war figure of only 143,000 per year. Their entire claim relies on the accuracy of that figure. A figure which must've come from Hussein's government. A figure which is half the US death rate, in poor, violent, Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq?Why not? Infant mortality in poor,violent Cuba is lower than the US.

[ishmael]

Very useful, Lee. If it was any more useful I'd fall asleep. Yawn.

[htom]

I think that extrapolating from 500 actual deaths to 600,000 estimated deaths is unsound.

[LeeG]

for folks who don't like the methods used to estimate fatalities, methods used in other contexts such as Darfur, Congo without argument, consider the Bagdad morgue.

Consider whether ONE hospital would have 1/2, 1/10, 1/100th of total fatalities in Iraq.
I don't know the fraction either,,but one hospital in Iraq wouldn't have bodies from cities outside of Bagdad (transport a body in 120degree heat through competing militias?),,and that other hospitals in Bagdad would get bodies.

The numbers I've heard for the bagdad morque alone are around 25,000. Search around.

The revealing issue is that the US gov't doesn't track it. If you were looking for metrics of quality of life, security, health then there would be numbers from the US gov't to prove how much things are better than under Saddam. But we don't.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5541981

[LeeG]

Very useful, Lee. If it was any more useful I'd fall asleep. Yawn.

Jack, if you're concerned about bringing democracy and liberating people from a dictatorship then you need numbers. Numbers about production in factories, numbers about crime, numbers about medicine, numbers about births, deaths and stepping on unexploded ordnance or kidnappings and torture.

Your discomfort with the specifics of an issue is a consistant theme in these political threads. Why don't you apply your insightful and self-reflective nature to the task?

Here's a good example. In the first few months of the CPAs existance there were three individuals tasked with developing economic policy in Iraq. They invited German experts to visit given that West Germany had some recent experience integrating East Germanies economy into theirs. The Germans asked "how many personell do you have to implement these plans?",,,and the CPA official says "you're looking at it,,us three",,the Germans said "don't bother, we had 8,000"

You see some numbers, even if they aren't precise, provide some understanding of the problem.

[TomF]

But they compared present day deaths to a pre war figure of only 143,000 per year. Their entire claim relies on the accuracy of that figure. A figure which must've come from Hussein's government. A figure which is half the US death rate, in poor, violent, Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq?This is the second time this group has published a survey of war-related deaths in Iraq. The claimed pre-war death rate of 2.5/1000 was calculated from the responses given by individuals surveyed ... and the two separate surveys, separated in time by a couple of years, with different survey respondants ... came up with the same pre-war death rate.

That rate is consistent with rates published by two US government sources, cited in the article's bibliography. Note the access date for the CIA factbook; I went there today, and found a death rate estimate for 2003 listed at 5.4/1000, with no commentary on if, when, or why the estimate was updated.
CIA 2003 Factbook entry for Iraq. http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/ (http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps35389/2003/iz.html)lps35389/2003/iz.html (http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps35389/2003/iz.html) (accessed Oct 2, 2006).

US Agency for International Health and US Census Bureau.
Global population profile: 2002. Washington, DC:
US Census Bureau, 2004.

[ishmael]

I'm not uncomfortable with the stats, Lee. I'm uncomfortable with you.

I don't like it, I wish you could explain better, or I could hear better, so I didn't feel this way, but them's the apples.

[LeeG]

Jack there are people who dispute the statistics and you are very clear that the argument should be dismissed and the bigger question of what should be done needs addressing.

How the f*ck can you consider what to do next without some reality based assesment of where you are? Would it be irrelevant to NOT know how many US wounded there are? How about the burn rate of dollars to maintain 150,000 troops?

All those numbers are sought with real consequences for a lack of precision.

But you don't think this argument about numbers of Iraqi deaths is worthwhile.

"not fight about what is wholly inconsequential just now. "

Your characterization of an assesment of Iraqi deaths as inconsequential pretty much describes how damaged your brain has become. You've lost the ability to give words meaning.

[Milo Christensen]

I'll jump on the pile here, once more. Jack, look, I was having trouble with the violence in Iraq when I thought only 30,000 to 60,000 had died. How it was that I became somewhat comfortable with that number is something I'm having a hard time justifying to myself. It made it hard to believe that we could get a democracy up and running and leave Iraq with honor. Now, the survey comes out with a staggeringly larger numbers of deaths from violence. And late yesterday, the generals on the ground in Iraq say they'll need to leave the force levels at 140,000 until 2010. And today, the generals on the ground admit that the sectarian violence is escalating, escalating, escalating.

At what point would the deaths in Iraq become consequential to you? Decimation?

I think any right thinking person, regardless of their political leanings and/or their ability to comprehend statistical methodology, has to begin asking the question "Would the Iraqis be better off if we did indeed cut and run?" In other words, does the humanitarian imperative implicit in American motives begin to supercede the political imperatives?

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

...the humanitarian imperative implicit in American motives...

<accent on mode=cockney>Implicit?? Do What?</accent>

What, exactly implies a "humanitarian imperative"?

Which american politician, when asked "What is best in life?"
Replied - "To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women."?

[PatCox]

Does anyone remember "The bitch got in the way?"

[Milo Christensen]

...What, exactly implies a "humanitarian imperative"?...

I thought we were still working on gettting you to understand the rules for the use of the serial comma?

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Wasn't using a serial comma, just the one - for flavour.

Got to admire the use of the ellipsis though.

[Osborne Russell]

In other words, does the humanitarian imperative implicit in American motives begin to supercede the political imperatives?

When the tooth fairy puts a 20 under your pillow.

[George Jung]

So the experts are projecting several hundred thousand dead - over and above the 'normal' death rate; approximately 1/3 attributable to US inflicted casualties, 2/3's (by default) to insurgents. You think we should cut'n run? Will that exacerbate that 'bottom line' 2/3's? Or will the death rate return to normal?

[ljb5]

You think we should cut'n run?

George, are you able to conceive of a possible course of action somewhere between the two extremes of 'Stay the Course' and 'Cut and Run'????

Is it, hypothetically, possible that there might be some other option -- such as 'Modify the Course'?

You do a great disservice to the debate and our ability to accomplish our goals by pretending you cannot see other alternatives.

[ljb5]

One of the main problems of the Republicans is that they are more focused on winning the argument against the Democrats than they are on winning the war in Iraq.

They spend more time denouncing and mischaracterizing the Democrats' position than they do thinking about what was actually said and if any of it might be a good idea.

The Republicans would rather fail in Iraq than take a suggestion from the Democrats.

[brad9798]

We are too far in to cut and run ... but stay the course is surely not working ...

I'm no foreign affairs specialist, but what makes sense with regard to modifying the course.

We cannot save Iraq/Middle East from the eternity of upheaval, warring that has been happening there for(nearly)ever.

Perhaps we admit mistake, turn over to the UN?

[BrianW]

That rate is consistent with rates published by two US government sources, cited in the article's bibliography. Note the access date for the CIA factbook; I went there today, and found a death rate estimate for 2003 listed at 5.4/1000, with no commentary on if, when, or why the estimate was updated.

I went there as per your suggestion, and found the death rate listed under basic population data...

Population:
24,683,313 (July 2003 est.)
Age structure:
0-14 years: 40.7% (male 5,103,669; female 4,946,443)
15-64 years: 56.3% (male 7,033,268; female 6,855,644)
65 years and over: 3% (male 348,790; female 395,499) (2003est.)
Median age:
total: 19 years
male: 18.9 years
female: 19.1 years (2002)
Population growth rate:
2.78% (2003 est.)
Birth rate:
33.66 births/1,000 population (2003 est.)
Death rate:
5.84 deaths/1,000 population (2003 est.)

For some reason, I couldn't get that webpage to work for me by selecting other countries, so I did a quick Yahoo search for US death rates and came up with this 2003 info...

In 2003, a total of 2,448,288 deaths occurred in the United States (Tables 1 and 2).

Bullet graphicThe age-adjusted death rate (Tables 1 and 2), which takes the aging of the population into account, was 832.7 deaths per 100,000 U.S. standard population.

I'll admit, I didn't research what they mean be age-adjusted.

Anyhow, the conversion, by mulitplying Iraqs 5.84 per 1000 by 100 (to equal the 100,000 figure used for the US stats is 584 deaths per 100,000.

So...
832 per 100,000 US
584 per 100,000 Iraq

Let's take the population of Iraq from above... 24,683,313 ...and divide by 100,000 and we get 246.8313. Multiply that by the 584 deaths per 100,000

246.8313x584 = 144,150 death per year

The 600,000 figure still isn't adding up. I don't do this for a living, and claim no expertise in the subject, but I'm still not buying it.

Since the researchers claim to have death certificates for 92% of their stats, why does no other agency, such as the one that issues death certificates in Iraq, back up this claim? Am I missing something here?

[BrianW]

One of the main problems of the Democrats is that they are more focused on winning the argument against the Republicans than they are on winning the war in Iraq.

They spend more time denouncing and mischaracterizing the Republicans position than they do thinking about what was actually said and if any of it might be a good idea.

The Democrats would rather fail in Iraq than take a suggestion from the Republicans.

Hey look it works both ways. Who'da thunk it.

[TomF]

If the former Yugoslavia, Ruanda, Angola, the Congo etc. have taught us anything, they've taught us that arbitrary political boundaries which cut through areas of strong ethnic or regional identity will ultimately lead to bloodshed.

Iraq, like many areas which were once under European colonial control, isn't a "real" country, expressing the territorial aspirations of a "real" unified national community. As in the countries mentioned above, in Iraq we saw sectoral conflict submerged under a ruthless regional ruler ... but those conflicts re-emerge in the vacuum after the leader's fall.

The best option might be to enable the re-structuring of Iraq into areas where people actually do have national, identity communities. A Kurdistan is an obvious example; it's much harder to figure out regarding Shia and Sunni ... the India/Pakistan/Bangladesh division went rather well too, IIRC. But the point is that in Iraq, we're seeing the legacy of freezing the national boundaries left by retreating European colonial influences.

Of course, there are other peo-political reasons why that wouldn't be allowed to occur - Turkey and Iran wouldn't be desperately pleased, for instance. But if we're interested in what's best for the people occupying what's now called Iraq? Hmmm.

[ljb5]

Brian, I'm not sure what's causing your confusion....

832 per 100k in U.S. compared to 584 per 100k in Iraq...

That seems to check out, because we know that the U.S. has a very old (and aging) population while Iraq has a very young population.

The data was from 2003. 2003 wasn't a very good year in Iraq. Tough to get good data. Things haven't got better since then.

Moreover, the situation in Iraq seems comparable to other countries which have had civil wars. How many died in the Congo and South Asia?

It also seems comparable to some of the (admittedly spotty and unreliable) news reports we've seen. There have been times when they've found dozens of tortured, executed bodies at a time.... and those are just the ones who were deliberately killed.

[LeeG]

ok,,lets say it's 144,000 per year because the 420,000 to 790,000 isn't something you can buy.
GW is sticking with the intel from newswire sources which is around 45,000 which is about twice what the main hospital in Bagdad has processed.
I wonder what the CIA would say?

[ljb5]

Hey look it works both ways. Who'da thunk it.

No, Brian... it not does work both ways.

The Democrats are offering suggestions, but the Republicans are not only refusing to consider them, but actually pretending like they haven't been offered at all.

Whenever a Democrat makes any suggestion, the Republicans immediately attack it as 'cut and run'.... even though, in many cases, it's not 'cut and run.'

The second difference is that the Democrats aren't in a position to take suggestions from the Republicans. The Republicans are in power and doing everything they want anyway.

The Republicans' mistake is that they won't take advice from the Democrats.
The Democrats' mistake is that they did take advice from the Republicans.


It doesn't work both ways.

[BrianW]

LeeG,

We can all add, and see that 144,000 a year, for three years, is right about the minimum number for the range provided. What's not given is the number of deaths actually related to the war, or just plain old folks dying like they do the world over.

I'd suggest the prez is talking about war related deaths, and the larger figures are deaths overall.

[ljb5]

I'd suggest the prez is talking about war related deaths, and the larger figures are deaths overall.

Actually, the 655,000 number is only counting war-related deaths -- over and above the normal death rate.

[BrianW]

Brian, I'm not sure what's causing your confusion....

832 per 100k in U.S. compared to 584 per 100k in Iraq...

That's okay ljb5, I'm no longer confused.

The figures released and expoited to make non-thinking folks believe the US has caused 600,000 deaths in Iraq are nothing more that political rhetoric.

It looks good on newspaper headline, and since most folks don't read the article, the effect was exactly as planned. It was a good manuever, very 'Rovish.' :)

[BrianW]

Actually, the 655,000 number is only counting war-related deaths -- over and above the normal death rate.

Show me.

The researchers claim to have seen 92% of the death certificates. Let's see them, and what the cause of death is.

[LeeG]

the prez was quoting the same number given by IraqBodyCount when prompted by a reporter about a half year ago. It's based entirely on newswire reporting,,you know,,in a country where there's no reporters outside the green zone, and if they are they're tagged insurgent sympathizers.

[ljb5]

Show me.

The researchers claim to have seen 92% of the death certificates. Let's see them, and what the cause of death is.

I wish you had demanded to see the proof back when Bush was making wild claims about WMDs.

"Show me" would have done a lot of good then.

If you're really that interested, you can dig up the report and read it yourself. You could even go to Iraq and have a look.

What's your angle here? You think Bush is less biased than the Hopkins researchers?

[TomF]

Show me.

The researchers claim to have seen 92% of the death certificates. Let's see them, and what the cause of death is.
Brian,

I’ve attached a link to the actual article in The Lancet, and the précis version of the study’s findings. You’ll see that I (and others) have been mis-quoting the pre-war death rates – they are in fact quoting 5.5/1000, which is relatively close to the 5.84 of the CIA site. The post-invasion death rate, over 40 months, calculates to 13.3/1000.

The deaths they’re describing are “excess Iraqi deaths,” related to the war … beyond those they’d expect at the 5.5/1000 rate. The total deaths seem to be 2.5% of the total population of the area … which is where I got that mistaken number.

Later in the article they describe 56% of the deaths attributable to gunfire, and percentages in the mid teens attributed each to IED explosions and aerial bombardment. No, they don't show copies of the death certificates.

http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf (http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf)


Findings
12 801 individuals in 47 clusters was gathered. 1474 births and 629 deaths were reported during the observation period. Pre-invasion mortality rates were 5·5 per 1000 people per year (95% CI 4·3–7·1), compared with 13·3 per 1000 people per year (10·9–16·1) in the 40 months post-invasion. We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654 965 (392 979–942 636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2·5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601 027 (426 369–793 663) were due to violence, the most
common cause being gunfire.

[htom]

... As a first stage of sampling, 50 clusters were selected systematically by Governorate with a population proportional to size appproach, on the basis of the 2004 UNDP/Iraqi Ministry of Planning population estimates (table 1). At the second stage of sampling, teh Governorate's constituent administrave units were listed by population or estimated population, and location(s) were selected randomly proportionate to population size. The third stage consisted of random selection of a main street within the administrative unit from a list of all main streets. A residential street was then randomly selected from a list of residential streets crossing the main street. On the residential street, houses were numbered and a start household was randomly selected. From this start household, the team proceeded to the adjacent residence until 40 households were surveyed. For this study, a household was defined as a unit that ate together, and had a separate entrence from the street or a separate apartment entrence. ...

Anyone who can't see the problems there needs to retake surveying 101; they essentially have 50 points, not 2000.

[TomF]

...Anyone who can't see the problems there needs to retake surveying 101; they essentially have 50 points, not 2000.Nope. They had 50 clusters, chosen to be representative. From there they fanned out to survey a random representative sample, ultimately recording on how many citizens? over 1800 households, representing over 12,800 people.

They explicitly acknowledge the limitations of cluster-grouping methodology, which is why they give the range of results they do.

As various have said, this methodology is well established for this purpose in war zones, where samples are terribly difficult to get. But there've been no methodological questions raised about its use in the Congo, or Bosnia, or Ruanda ... why here? The methodology's either sound in all cases, or in none.

[LeeG]

me thinks the problem with this information is that it doesn't use words like terrorist, insurgent, freedom or liberation. It's without the appropriate context for processing information about Iraq.

[htom]

They have fifty clusters, each with one random point.

In going to one house, then the neighbor's, ... until you've collected 40 who are willing to talk to you is not a random process. By the time you're knocking on door 20 it's entirely possible that the legitimate occupants have been temporarily displaced by those who are interested in providing non-random data.

I'd like to see the results if they restricted their data to the first or first two or three houses in each cluster.

[Milo Christensen]

...246.8313x584 = 144,150 death per year...
...The 600,000 figure still isn't adding up....
...Am I missing something here?

Well, this is just perfect. Brian does all this work and comes up with the exact same (+/- 1,000) number of deaths pre-war as the survey (which incidentally, came up with that number by asking questions about who was living and dying at that location pre-war). It's amazing! Given that the major criticism of this study is the initial, pre-war death rate, and that Brian has come to the exact same starting point, I think it's time for him to acknowledge that this whole thing is based on really, really well validated statistical methodology.

Yes, you're missing something really significant, the fact that you, me, all of us, have been lied to by politicians who don't want the horrible truth to be told.

[Milo Christensen]

I'd like to see the results if they restricted their data to the first or first two or three houses in each cluster.

The researchers discussed this at length on NPR today. They realized that the death rate due to violence was probably understated in their 2004 research because "a bomb doesn't affect just one household".

How many bombs a day have been going off in Iraq? How many are ours? How many are the insurgent jihadists? What do you hit when you expend 1,800,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition? How many rounds have the insurgents, jihadists, sectarian separatists, and criminals expended in Iraq? Remember that the round to kill ratio when you're kidnapped is 1. Think about it.

[PeterSibley]

I guess it comes down to the credibility.Bush v John Hopkins.If thats a problem,insert Clinton or Blair ,they're all professional liars.

[Nicholas Carey]

At a 10000:1 kill ratio, that suggests 180,000 deaths.... within an order of magnitude of the statistical analysis. Sounds not unreasonable to me.The historic quartermaster's rule of thumb is 1,000 rounds per kill.

[Nicholas Carey]

High C, you commented earlier that the question is whether the pre-war death estimate was accurate, considering the character of Saddam-era Iraq. The article linked on the first page of this thread has an interesting comment on that:It's also instructive that this is the second survey done by this team on this topic - the first estimated war deaths in the first 18 months of the war. The estimate of a pre-war death rate of 5.5/1000 people was replicated in this second survey.Bear in mind that in Hussein's Iraq, the gov't was the sole proprietor of violence -- if you didn't run afoul of the gov't, you did OK. And, in Hussein's Iraq, people had universal medical care :B -- which might not have been great, but that would have been due to the US-sponsored embargo against Iraq (and to governmental corruption -- a lot of stuff got diverted to those with pull of one sort or another).

[George Jung]

Lil', if I didn't know you were just an irritating, abrasive lil' troll, I'd think you were kind of sloowwww.....

I think any right thinking person, regardless of their political leanings and/or their ability to comprehend statistical methodology, has to begin asking the question "Would the Iraqis be better off if we did indeed cut and run?" In other words, does the humanitarian imperative implicit in American motives begin to supercede the political imperatives?

That, btw, is a quote from Milo (post 112). Followed by:

So the experts are projecting several hundred thousand dead - over and above the 'normal' death rate; approximately 1/3 attributable to US inflicted casualties, 2/3's (by default) to insurgents. You think we should cut'n run? Will that exacerbate that 'bottom line' 2/3's? Or will the death rate return to normal?

That's my post; you followed with:

George, are you able to conceive of a possible course of action somewhere between the two extremes of 'Stay the Course' and 'Cut and Run'????

Is it, hypothetically, possible that there might be some other option -- such as 'Modify the Course'?

You do a great disservice to the debate and our ability to accomplish our goals by pretending you cannot see other alternatives

You do a great disservice to this debate, and our ability to accomplish our goals, by being such a partisan sycophant. Work on that, will you? Try actually reading what has been posted, instead of jumping right into 'Super Democrat Mode'.

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

"It's sad what some folks are anxious to believe. :("

Well, you got that part right chubby.

[brad9798]

ljb5- a few posts back, I was asking for help in what we should do ... guess no one saw that, eh? :rolleyes:

[Norman Bernstein]

Just look at the possiblities here. How many future terrorists have we eliminated?

I used to think you were just a nasty-spirited troll, erster... but after that comment, I think you're seriously sick. The last guy who thought that genocide was the solution to his political problems was Adolf Hitler.

[WX]

It has always facinated me that the right to life mob care more about the unborn than they do about the quality of life of the living.
Personally I would rather see a pregnancy terminated than see another child born into abuse and neglect or unloved.
Give me quality of life over quantity every time.

[WX]

How many homeless and destitute people have you given a helping hand to Erster?

[LeeG]

I heard something said by one of the people who did the survey is that the method they used is the same one used by the US gov't for assessing data in disasters like Darfur.

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

I just thank the good lord those Iraqi's don't have to live in horrible oppression. Oh wait, they're just not living..yeah, that's like freedom I guess. Okay then

I know it's not 655,000. It's 487,352 ... tops.. goddamn media. sunsofbitches.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Here is an opinion - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6046332.stm

Saying that, from that position - will win him an entry in the history books.

[George Roberts]

The numbers reported on NPR, The Wall Street Journal, and other sources are from the same study. Repeating a story does not increase or reduce its truth. (This current study is a continuation of the prior study done by the same authors.)

Iraq's population distribution does not mirror the expected distribution because prior wars, migration, and political acts have distorted the population but ...

It still appears that the prewar deaths used as a basis for the study are low.

I think the Iraqi government counts of deaths are around 60k. Compared to 600k there seems to be a problem someplace.

----

But does it really matter, we are not there to reduce the war time death rate.

[ljb5]

I think the Iraqi government counts of deaths are around 60k. Compared to 600k there seems to be a problem someplace.

Oh, there's a problem someplace, that's for sure.

I wonder if the Iraqi government is truly impartial and accurate...

Could it be that they have some motivation to deflate the number? Perhaps they're worried they'd be thrown out of office if people understood how bad it really is.... or worse, if the contradict Bush in public, they might lose those big fat support payments.

[stevebaby]

Lets give this some perspective here.

Source: The Guttmacher Institute (a special affiliate to Planned Parenthood), which actively collects the abortion data directly from providers. All numbers reported are voluntary; there are no laws requiring abortionists to report to any national agency the numbers of abortions they perform. 2001-2002 are estimates by Guttmacher; 2003-2005 are estimates by the National Right to Life Committee.

One baby is aborted every 24 seconds
147 babies are aborted every hour
3,542 babies are aborted every day
24,865 babies are aborted every week
107,750 babies are aborted every month
http://www.mccl.org/images/us_graph_05.gifSo how many of those foetuses were "potential terrorists"...or murderers,or criminals etc.
How many?

[PeterSibley]

Just look at the possiblities here. How many future terrorists have we eliminated? A great side note is that look at the many people that will not consume oil and polute the planet. We do not have to feed these folks, no additional healthcare, keeping the national debt down. How can liberals be so opposed? The liberals kill many in their own country each year, voluntary, and with support of their own base.

Are you serious Oyster ? One minute your offering drivel like the above ,then defending the unborn :confused:.You really are a strange puppy .

[stevebaby]

According to erster...it's OK to kill Iraquis because some of them might be "terrists"...but not OK to abort foetuses even though some of them might be murderers.
Just think,erster,all those foetuses that get aborted don't consume oil,don't pollute the planet,don't need to be fed,don't need health-care and keep the national debt down.
Don't they?

[shamus]

... my whole family and I have given parts of my own body to the less fortunate.....

Why do I get the feeling that they may have been cranial parts?

[Norman Bernstein]

... my whole family and I have given parts of my own body to the less fortunate.....


Hmmm... you should have kept those parts of the brain responsible for English grammar and syntax, erster.

[TomF]

Oyster, I understand how thread drift might be welcomed just now by folks who don't like what this Johns Hopkins study says about war related deaths in Iraq. The numbers of dead Iraqi men of military age are quite staggering, as is the estimate that most have died from gunshot wounds.

But the topic is that; not abortion. Please start another thread if you want to talk about aborted fetuses, and Liberals' alleged hypocrisy regarding them.

[LeeG]

Erster, do you think Jenna and Barbara Bush would have had babies if they got pregnant at age 18?

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

WAKE UP.

Thread Hi-Jack alert.

[LeeG]

ok,ok,,,holw about this

a top UK commander is saying they should be leaving Iraq. Imagine a US commander saying that.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6046332.stm


The presence of UK armed forces in Iraq "exacerbates the security problems" and they should "get out some time soon", the head of the British Army has said.
Chief of the General Staff Sir Richard Dannatt told the Daily Mail that the military campaign fought in 2003 had "effectively kicked the door in".

He also said that initial planning for the post-war period had been poor.

There are currently more than 7,000 British soldiers in Iraq, based largely in Basra in the south of the country.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said Britain had "a clear strategy" and worked with international partners "in support of the democratically elected government of Iraq, under a clear UN mandate."

BBC political editor Nick Robinson described Sir Richard's remarks as "quite extraordinary".

He said the new head of the British army's comments "directly contradicted so much of what the government had said".

[LeeG]

or,,horrors a congressman. Good thing those wise soldier statesmen like Cheney, Wurmser, Feith, Perle, GW, Wofowitz know how to use military power.

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

Yes Tom, kinda like the arguements when the libs want to talk about the many pro life people that support the death penalty, too, right? Except the numbers are a staggering contrasts, but the issue is the same, murdering of the innocent, right?;) The libs want to compare the few on death row, or even receive the maximum sentence, to the numbers murdered each day by abortions., I say bring it on. I think that it could also be said the the libs want you to believe the numbers are the same, which also can be considered an inflated number, right? :) Remember, the issue is the same, both horrific acts imposed upon the human race by evil people, right?:)

Jackass :rolleyes:

Tom reaches out all nice and kind and respectful and OysterMike punches back with this crap. :mad:

[TomF]

No question, Oyster, fetuses are killed. There are hard numbers for abortions, while only estimates for war deaths. Use the search thingy to find what I've said about abortion - I've gone over and over and over it with SamF; you'll find that I didn't quite say what you expect. I'll talk to you about it elsewhere.

We talked a while back about the Battle of the Somme. Grotesquely, the farmers' fields where the battle was fought produced bumper crops for years after, reflecting all the added fertility. Nobody really knows how many bodies were never recovered, lost in the mud and collapsing trenches.

But probably, some agronomist historian could work out a rough estimate, correlating the improved agricultural yields with the impact of adding fertilizer and organic matter at known rates/acre. Would it make the impact of those human losses any less, to put a harder number on it?

The Johns Hopkins study, like any demographic estimate of war impact, can be only an estimate within a plausible range. That does not make the impact of the actual deaths any less significant; it can only start to describe a picture of the devastation.

As do the rich fields of the Somme.

[LeeG]

Erster, your faith based Republican leadership was pulling your chain.
Of course they wouldn't and you know it. The abortion issue is a place for middle aged men past their sexual prime to exert political pressure. They wouldn't stand in the way of their daughters desire to not become a teenage mothers. Those Republican dads aren't going to stay at home and take care of their grandaughters,,if they are they're in a demographic where grandma will. You're a tool. Thanks for the support.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/13/washington/13faith.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=washington&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

While many conservative Christians considered President Bush “a brother in Christ,” Mr. Kuo writes, “for most of the rest of the White House staff, evangelical leaders were people to be tolerated, not people who were truly welcomed.”

The political affairs office headed by Karl Rove was especially “eye-rolling,” Mr. Kuo’s book says. It says staff members in that office “knew ‘the nuts’ were politically invaluable, but that was the extent of their usefulness.”

[Sam F]

No question, Oyster, fetuses are killed. There are hard numbers for abortions, while only estimates for war deaths. Use the search thingy to find what I've said about abortion - I've gone over and over and over it with SamF; you'll find that I didn't quite say what you expect. I'll talk to you about it elsewhere.


Isn't it the old "personally opposed but..." thingy?

[TomF]

Know what? I'll start an abortion thread, so if people really want, they can talk about it there.

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

:rolleyes: Annnnnnnd we are off and running. Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the 1,500 ongoing abortion thread. Sit back grab some popcorn and have a seat, now that Evangelical Sam I am is in da house this will drift away from it's intended subject matter and dive full steam into a narrow minded abortion thread. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Sam F]

Know what? I'll start an abortion thread, so if people really want, they can talk about it there.

Why?

If life is the issue - as in "More Iraqi's Killed..." then it's the issue here as well as anywhere.

[Keith Wilson]

Look, if we like we can argue about abortion again, and whether or not killing an embryo or fetus is morally equivalent to killing a baby. I'd rather not; we've beaten the subject to death, but if you do, another thread would be appropriate.

However, the issue is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to discussions of the occupation of Iraq and how many people have died there.

[Norman Bernstein]

:rolleyes: Annnnnnnd we are off and running. Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the 1,500 ongoing abortion thread. Sit back grab some popcorn and have a seat, now that Evangelical Sam I am is in da house this will drift away from it's intended subject matter and dive full steam into a narrow minded abortion thread. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Only if we take the bait, Joe.

[Sam F]

It has always facinated me that the right to life mob care more about the unborn than they do about the quality of life of the living...

WX puts this in the standard form.
It is of course subject to inversion:
It has always facinated me that the Liberal mob care more about convicted criminals (as in the death penalty) than they do about the life of innocent babies.

Since that knife cuts both ways, it would seem reasonable to handle it with care - something that is often not done.

[Sam F]

However, the issue is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to discussions of the occupation of Iraq and how many people have died there.

Life is not irrelevant.

[TomF]

Know what? I'll start an abortion thread, so if people really want, they can talk about it there.It's up and waiting. Tick tock.

[TomF]

For those opposed to the cluster-sampling methodology of this study, what would be a more accurate way to estimate war-related deaths in combat zones?

[htom]

Cluster sampling using random interviewees would be better.

Abandoning the convience of cluster sampling will get better results, too, although it's more work. Interview 2000 random adults, chosen from a current population density map.

But in any case it's going to be disputed. How many families is a (say) Syrian terrorist going to have lived with? How do you delete collisions from the same person being reported by several extended family members?

600,000 / 40 months = 15,000 per month / 30 days = 500 per day, on average. Some days more, some less. But the "record" for a day is supposedly 65 or 126 or 238 ... where'd the others go? Yes, most are probably dying in ones and twos, but the daily reporting is not producing averages anywhere near 500 per day.

[TomF]

You may be right, htom, on how to improve the sampling. I'm certain that the cluster technique loses in comparison with the types of randomized sampling that are possible in places where you're not dealing with combat conditions.

What troubles me is that the methodology was never questioned in other war zones where it was used, and this type of study has been done by reportedly dozens of epidemiologists and demographers to estimate war impacts.

Did we not comment on the methodology when it was used in Bosnia or Ruanda or the Congo because we didn't pay attention, or didn't care, but because of Iraq's profile we do this time? Is that more likely than the obvious responses ... that the criticisms this time are politically motivated?

[Milo Christensen]

Did we not comment on the methodology when it was used in Bosnia or Ruanda or the Congo because we didn't pay attention, or didn't care, but because of Iraq's profile we do this time? Is that more likely than the obvious responses ... that the criticisms this time are politically motivated?

It's interesting to note the cluster of ideologies (sampled from other posts/threads) that go with the folks making the "argument from disbelief".

[LeeG]

htom, are you saying there are no deaths that are not reported and accessible to western newservices in a country where we don't speak the language or know the enemy?

Who the hell follows daily reportings of killed Iraqis let alone reportings in non-english newservices? Oh, right those left wing liberal human rights organizations that don't want to listen to US gov't sources that don't publish accounts or methodology for estimating IRaqi deaths.

[htom]

I was unaware of the "methodology" being used in the other cases; I would raise the same objections if they have the same flaws. As it is, I have little faith in any survey published in a newspaper, as they've long ago convinced me that they are innumerate, and couldn't correctly sumarize anything more complicated than simple change making (and some of them might not be able to handle that!) "Many are being killed" is sufficient; bragging rights as to who is being killed the most is both stupid and immoral.

I am sure that there are deaths that are not reported, and deaths that do not have death certificates; I am also sure that death certificates are being forged, for access to benefits to survivors. How close these two "errors" come to offsetting each other I don't know.

I don't follow the number of reported deaths; I do read headlines, though. /googles iraq deaths record/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1878474,00.html
/snips/
Civilian deaths soar to record high in Iraq
Peter Beaumont in Baghdad and agencies
Friday September 22, 2006
The Guardian

Nearly 7,000 civilians were killed in Iraq in the past two months, according to a UN report just released - a record high that is far greater than initial estimates had suggested. As American generals in Baghdad warned that the violence could worsen in the run up to Ramadan next Monday, the UN spoke of a "grave sectarian crisis" gripping the country.

With known Iraqi deaths running at more than 100 a day because of sectarian murders, al-Qaida and nationalist insurgent attacks, and fatalities inflicted by the multinational forces, the UN said its total was likely to be "on the low side" because of the difficulties of collecting accurate figures. In particular, it said that no deaths were reported from the violent region covering Ramadi and Falluja.

...

7000/60 = a little over a hundred a day; the projected total is five times that per day, so how can this be "record levels"?

--------
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060921/D8K98K180.html
/snips/

According to the U.N., which releases the figures every two months, violent civilian deaths in July reached an unprecedented high of 3,590, an average of more than 100 a day. The August toll was 3,009, the report said.

The lower August number may have been the result of a security crackdown in Baghdad, though it was partly offset by a rise in attacks elsewhere, including in the northern city of Mosul.

For the previous period, the U.N. had reported just under 6,000 deaths - 2,669 in May and 3,149 in June. That was up from 1,129 in April, and 710 in January.

Of the total for July and August, the report said 5,106 of the dead were from Baghdad.

...
Again, nowhere near a 500/day average.

--------
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

current min : max 43937 : 48783

I suppose the other 600,000 could be non-civilians.

[TomF]

I suppose the other 600,000 could be non-civilians.That's quite possible. The John's Hopkins study was of war-related deaths, and not specifically of civilian deaths. In the interview I heard on CBC radio with one of the study's authors, she drew attention to the disproportionate death count for men in the correct age for military service - between 18 and 45. That's where most of the deaths occurred.

Again, the study was not looking at civilian deaths exclusively, but overall death counts as a result of the war.

[Milo Christensen]

...I have little faith in any survey published in a newspaper, as they've long ago convinced me that they are innumerate, and couldn't correctly sumarize anything more complicated than simple change making

You just don't get it, do you? The survey was published in a peer reviewed journal of medicine. One of the top medical journals in the world. There is absolutely no one with the statistical epidemiology background to replicate the study saying that there was anything wrong with the methodology or the results as reported. Not one. Yes, the publisher had a motive for publishing the article. He took the Hippocratic Oath as a doctor.

What would you do or say if the survey is correct? Would you care? Would it change your thinking about this war?

[htom]

Change my thinking about this war? No. You may not have noticed before, but lots of people die in war, on every side, including the innocent.

Peer-reviewed journals can be as -- or even more -- biased than newspapers.

[John of Phoenix]

Would it change your thinking about this war?

Milo, it seems you've changed your position from "pro" to what? "Less pro"? All the way to "anti" perhaps?

What accounts for the change?

[Milo Christensen]

John: Yes. I know more than enough statistics to take this survey very seriously. The Romans had an extremely effective method of completely eliminating "insurgencies" in their empire. They called it decimation. They lined up populations (even in their own legions).

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Crucify this one.

In many cases the decimated populations never recovered.

We're one quarter of the way there and it's still escalating.

[John of Phoenix]

Escalating is good right? I mean, the Romans were around for several hundred years. If we're gonna be cuttin' and runnin' pretty soon, we'd better make it maybe one in five instead of one in ten. Get on with the program.

BTW, the crucifixion business…Cheney would really love that.

[shamus]

Very refreshing to see that someone can change their opinion based on observation. I had thought that political views were too entrenched for that. Personal consideration of data (even if imperfect) wins where long cantankerous argument fails. Good.

[WX]

Hey Shamus, An opinion is only as good as the data it is based on, new data, hopefully a new opinion :D

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

All right... Can we get agreement on 431,677.5 Iraqi deaths due to the war? Come one people, be reasonable... We can do this.

I mean, they were all reasonable and died for nothing... can't we at least grant them a place in the statistics? I know I know... but some have voluntarily dropped off the list. Pretty nice of them I say.

[htom]

There is nothing reasonable about war.

[LeeG]

htom, there are reasonable methods for estimating UXO in Iraq, there are reasonable methods for allocating funds for anticipated injuries of US soldiers, there are reasonable methods for counting stars in a galaxy, there are reasonable methods for estimating fuel use for an operation,,hell there's even reasonable methods for estimating the number of troops needed to occupy a country of 26milllion people.

The question is whether the people in power find it useful to use those methods.

[Milo Christensen]

There is nothing reasonable about war.

Exactly. When the number of people that are dying becomes unreasonable, it's time for somebody to say Enough!

[htom]

Maybe the terrorists are right and we don't have the stomach for war any more.

Too many had died before we started; now is the time to fight harder and smarter. Giving up is neither and dishonors all of those already dead.

[LeeG]

oh boy, let's send in the Bush twins