Huge gaps in Iraq death estimates

Ya Bush....Poland.....I mean Iraq sure had them weapons of mass destruction! Fucken Nazi.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6045112.stm


The estimate that about 655,000 people have died in Iraq as a result of the 2003 invasion is such a large figure that it has led to two differing interpretations.

Those who had faith in an earlier report from 2004 - also published in the medical journal The Lancet - are now able to say that this larger survey proves their point that Iraqi deaths have been far greater than publicly reported, and have now reached what the report calls "a humanitarian emergency".

Those who thought that the 2004 survey was exaggerated - it estimated 98,000 additional deaths up until September 2004 - think this one is even more wide of the mark.

Les Roberts, one of the report's authors said: "It may not be extremely precise, but it gets us into the ball park."

On the other hand, Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, which tracks statistics in its Iraq Index, said: "I do not believe the new numbers. I think they're way off."

The Brooking Index, relying on the UN (which gets figures from the Iraqi health ministry) and the Iraq Body Count (IBC), estimates the civilian death toll at about 62,000.

The IBC, which counts the number of reported civilian deaths, puts them between 43,850 and 48,693, though it adds that this is a baseline and that the true figure could be much higher.

The IBC reaction to the Lancet report is awaited.

US President George W Bush rejected the estimate.

"I don't consider it a credible report," he said.

The US commander in Iraq, Gen George Casey, used a similar phrase.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett was more careful, and did not reject the report outright. However, she questioned it.

"The report gives a figure which is orders of magnitude different from any other source... nobody else has come up with figures on this scale... the report has been criticised by the Iraqi government as unreasonable," she said.

Report methodology

The strength of the report, its authors argue, is in its tried and trusted method.

It took a sample and then extrapolated broad results from that sample. This is a technique used in public opinion polling and in marketing, for example, in assessing television audiences.

In 2004, 33 clusters were chosen across the country with 30 households in each cluster. These households contained 7,868 people. This time, 47 clusters were chosen, with 12,801 people.

The method was to question people about deaths in their household first in the "pre-invasion" period and then in the "post-invasion" period leading up to July 2006.

The difference would constitute what the survey calls "excess deaths".

The report says that there were 82 deaths pre-invasion and 547 post-invasion.

It then multiplied these figures up in relation to the Iraqi population of 27,139,584, and came up with an estimated 654,956 "excess" deaths, 2.5 % of the population.

Some statistical caveats are entered. The lowest estimate of deaths is put at 392,979 and the highest at 942,636. The lowest figure is still much bigger than the other counts.

Of the "excess" deaths, 601,027 were attributed to the violence (mainly from gunfire and mainly among men aged 15-59), the rest coming largely from increased illness and disease.

The report concludes: "Our estimate of excess deaths is far higher than those reported in Iraq through passive surveillance methods. This discrepancy is not unexpected. Data from passive surveillance are rarely complete, even in stable circumstances, and are even less complete during conflict."

Critics of the report argue that something must have gone wrong in the sampling.

Such criticism was made of the first Lancet report. Some said that a high death rate in a small number of households could have hugely changed the extrapolated totals.

In Slate magazine, Fred Kaplan argued of the first report: "The problem is, ultimately, not with the scholars who conducted the study; they did the best they could under the circumstances.

"The problem is the circumstances. It's hard to conduct reliable, random surveys, and to extrapolate meaningful data from the results of those surveys in the chaotic, restrictive environment of war."

'Missing' dead

There is also the criticism that, crudely, the numbers of bodies being discovered do not match the figures.

It is assumed that the 601,000 violent "excess" deaths between March 2003 and July 2006 (about 40 months) should produce an average of about 500 violent deaths per day.

This is not going to be so all the time, given the spikes of violence, but it is a rough criterion.

The latest figures from the Iraqi health ministry (reported by the Associated Press news agency on 11 October) stated that 2,667 people were killed in Baghdad during September, 400 more than in August.

This gives an average of about 86 per day in the capital.

Baghdad is not the whole country of course, but AP reported the United Nations as saying that in July and August, 6,599 people were killed across the country, of which 5,106 were in Baghdad.

This suggests that Baghdad has by far the highest number of actual and percentage dead.

So, if the current rate in Baghdad is about 86 and the countrywide figure should be about 500 according to the Lancet report, where are the "missing" dead?

The answer from the report's authors would be that the dead are there, but have not been counted.

That supposes a huge failing by the Iraqi health ministry, a failing the report did not hint at, because it said that death certificates were readily available for most of the reported deaths in the households surveyed.

The international media is incapable of reporting overall deaths accurately, given the difficulties of travelling around. The local media is a source but cannot be relied on by itself.

We are left then with the estimate from this report and the various counts by other groups.

The figures are now even more divergent than they were.

Do a thorough census, and subtract that number from the population they had before the invasion, which was probably fairly accurate, and then you'd get at least a reasonable ballpark figure.

I don't think we'll ever really know with any degree of accuracy. But since it's politically advantageous for both the U.S. military and the Iraqi government to downplay the number of deaths, they probably are. The real number is probably somewhere between the two extremes. And whatever number it is, it's a lot, percentage-wise. If I lived in Iraq, I'd be doing nothing but trying to figure out how to get the hell out of there and find a safer place to live.

I'm sure the Iraqi and, especially U.S. officials really just want to point out actual combat deaths. This doesn't take into account all the other killing going on now, however. There was a good article in GQ (yes, I know, not the hallmark of higher jounalism but it works while taking a shit) that was written by the NY Times War Correspondent who had been living in Iraq up until quite recently. The gist of the article was that the people of Iraq have pretty much all accepted the fact that their days are numbered. They wake up every morning figuring "this will be my day" and go to bed every night figuring "well, it wasn't today, so probably tomorrow".

They're not worried about being killed by U.S. soldiers so much as other Iraqi's. There is apparently so much Sunni vs Shiite, Pro-America vs Anti-America, pro this vs anti that, killing going on that it makes what the soldiers are doing pale in comparison. And, with the exception of maybe the Kurds in the North, most Iraqi's will admit that their life was better under Saddam's rule than it is now. Yes, he was a hated dictator but you didn't walk around truly believeing that this breath would be your last.

Stephen Colbert had a solution to the problem: bring back Saddam! Lol, he was being tongue-in-cheek, but when you think about it, would it be worse than what they have now? That'll never happen of course, for numerous reasons, but it's funny to contemplate.

70% caused by Iraqis......Huuuuummmmm?


The last time this report came out was oct 2004 huuummmmmm?

^^You do realize that it's a british medical journal, right? To my knowledge it's not an election year there.The methadology is the the same one the us government relies on when they say "x number of people died in darfur". What is certain to give a very inaccurate number is to do what the us is doing to arrive at their number, which is to look a dead certificates in a place with basically no government. Who counts the dead once the gravedigger is killed? By that methadology the death toll in darfur is 0.

Even with all the deaths, I saw a poll yesterday that showed the majority of Iraqis do not want us to leave. That means most Iraqis think that if we leave, things will get WORSE. And...they're probably right. The problem is, I don't know if things will ever really get better if we DON'T leave. Which kinda sucks for the Iraqis; they're screwed either way.

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Even with all the deaths, I saw a poll yesterday that showed the majority of Iraqis do not want us to leave.

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How do they take a valid poll in Iraq when looking at someone the wrong way will get your head blown off? I can't really visualize some cheesecake from Media Associates going door to door with a clipboard. It might be a perfectly legitimate poll but it also sounds like some research firm might be playing with some useful propaganda for the parties concerned wanting to hear that answer.

Just being my skeptical self. I don't have enough information to make an informed call one way or the other.

Maybe the US should've thought about the consequences of removing the only stabilising thing (SADDAM) from Iraq before they fucked it all up ?

You think it's any better in Afghanistan ?

I believe we were all lied to by the US goverment and the Brits too.

A politician that doesn't lie is like a Kosher pig it doesn't exist.