100,000 Dead Iraqis Post Invasion

[The Kernel]

LONDON - A survey of deaths in Iraqi households estimates that as many as 100,000 more people may have died throughout the country in the 18 months after the U.S. invasion than would be expected based on the death rate before the war.

There is no official figure for the number of Iraqis killed since the conflict began, but some non-governmental estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000. As of Wednesday, 1,081 U.S. servicemen had been killed, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

The scientists who wrote the report concede that the data they based their projections on were of "limited precision," because the quality of the information depends on the accuracy of the household interviews used for the study. The interviewers were Iraqi, most of them doctors.

Designed and conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and the Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, the study is being published Thursday on the Web site of The Lancet medical journal.

The survey indicated violence accounted for most of the extra deaths seen since the invasion, and air strikes from coalition forces caused most of the violent deaths, the researchers wrote in the British-based journal.

"Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children," they said.

The report was released just days before the U.S. presidential election, and the lead researcher said he wanted it that way. The Lancet routinely publishes papers on the Web before they appear in print, particularly if it considers the findings of urgent public health interest.

Those reports then appear later in the print issue of the journal. The journal's spokesmen said they were uncertain which print issue the Iraqi report would appear in and said it was too late to make Friday's issue, and possibly too late for the Nov. 5 edition.

Les Roberts, the lead researcher from Johns Hopkins, said the article's timing was up to him.

"I emailed it in on Sept. 30 under the condition that it came out before the election," Roberts told The Asocciated Press. "My motive in doing that was not to skew the election. My motive was that if this came out during the campaign, both candidates would be forced to pledge to protect civilian lives in Iraq (news - web sites).

"I was opposed to the war and I still think that the war was a bad idea, but I think that our science has transcended our perspectives," Roberts said. "As an American, I am really, really sorry to be reporting this."

Richard Peto, an expert on study methods who was not involved with the research, said the approach the scientists took is a reasonable one to investigate the Iraq death toll.

However, it's possible that they may have zoned in on hotspots that might not be representative of the death toll across Iraq, said Peto, a professor of medical statistics at Oxford University in England.

To conduct the survey, investigators visited 33 neighborhoods spread evenly across the country in September, randomly selecting clusters of 30 households to sample. Of the 988 households visited, 808, consisting of 7,868 people, agreed to participate in the survey. At each one they asked how many people lived in the home and how many births and deaths there had been since January 2002.

The scientists then compared death rates in the 15 months before the invasion with those that occurred during the 18 months after the attack and adjusted those numbers to account for the different time periods.

Even though the sample size appears small, this type of survey is considered accurate and acceptable by scientists and was used to calculate war deaths in Kosovo in the late 1990s.

The investigators worked in teams of three. Five of the six Iraqi interviewers were doctors and all six were fluent in English and Arabic.



In the households reporting deaths, the person who died had to be living there at the time of the death and for more than two months before to be counted. In an attempt at firmer confirmation, the interviewers asked for death certificates in 78 households and were provided them 63 times.

There were 46 deaths in the surveyed households before the war. After the invasion, there were 142 deaths. That is an increase from 5 deaths per 1,000 people per year to 12.3 per 1,000 people per year — more than double.

However, more than a third of the post-invasion deaths were reported in one cluster of households in the city Falluja, where fighting has been most intense recently. Because the fighting was so severe there, the numbers from that location may have exaggerated the overall picture.

When the researchers recalculated the effect of the war without the statistics from Falluja, the deaths end up at 7.9 per 1,000 people per year — still 1.5 times higher than before the war.

Even with Falluja factored out, the survey "indicates that the death toll associated with the invasion and occupation of Iraq is more likely than not about 100,000 people, and may be much higher," the report said.

The most common causes of death before the invasion of Iraq were heart attacks, strokes and other chronic diseases. However, after the invasion, violence was recorded as the primary cause of death and was mainly attributed to coalition forces — with about 95 percent of those deaths caused by bombs or fire from helicopter gunships.

Violent deaths — defined as those brought about by the intentional act of others — were reported in 15 of the 33 clusters. The chances of a violent death were 58 times higher after the invasion than before it, the researchers said.

Twelve of the 73 violent deaths were not attributed to coalition forces. The researchers said 28 children were killed by coalition forces in the survey households. Infant mortality rose from 29 deaths per 1,000 live births before the war to 57 deaths per 1,000 afterward.

The researchers estimated the nationwide death toll due to the conflict by multiplying the difference between the two death rates by the estimated population of Iraq — 24.4 million at the start of the war. The result was then multiplied by 18 months, the average period between the invasion and the survey interviews.

"We estimate that there were 98,000 extra deaths during the postwar period in the 97 percent of Iraq represented by all the clusters except Falluja," the researchers said in the journal.

"This isn't about individual soldiers doing bad things. This appears to be a problem with the approach to occupation in Iraq," Roberts said.

The researchers called for further confirmation by an independent body such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, or the World Health Organization (news - web sites).

The study was funded by the Center for International Emergency Disaster and Refugee Studies at Johns Hopkins University and by the Small Arms Survey in Geneva, Switzerland, a research project based at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.

FUCK. Even I didn't think it was this bad. Anyone want to tell me again how exactly we are helping these people?

[Stravo]

*Watches for incoming rabid foaming at the mouth Bushies who will whine about the method, numbers, and most important of all inherent biases of this study because afterall RNC talking points are more fact based than any empirical study that speaks badly about the war*

[theski]

FUCK. Even I didn't think it was this bad. Anyone want to tell me again how exactly we are helping these people?

Seems a bit shakey... everything I have read puts it somewhere North of 30000

Learn to snip instead of quoting a full page of text for no reason!
~Pablo

[Darth Wong]

Very clever. You bolded the part about the very high rates in Fallujah but did not bold the part about how the numbers hit 100k even with the Fallujah numbers taken out of the equation.

[Patrick Degan]

FUCK. Even I didn't think it was this bad. Anyone want to tell me again how exactly we are helping these people?

Seems a bit shakey... everything I have read puts it somewhere North of 30000

*Watches for incoming rabid foaming at the mouth Bushies who will whine about the method, numbers, and most important of all inherent biases of this study because afterall RNC talking points are more fact based than any empirical study that speaks badly about the war*

And it looks like we have our first contestant.

Learn to snip instead of quoting a full page of text for no reason!
~Pablo

[Drooling Iguana]

Did this thread have several posts deleted or something? I'm finding it hard to follow. In particular, Wong seems to be referring to a post that does not exist (I haven't seen any bolded text in this thread.)

[Patrick Degan]

Did this thread have several posts deleted or something? I'm finding it hard to follow. In particular, Wong seems to be referring to a post that does not exist (I haven't seen any bolded text in this thread.)

That actually was the reason for quoting the article in the reply posts.

[Mr Bean]

There is no official figure for the number of Iraqis killed since the conflict began, but some non-governmental estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000. As of Wednesday, 1,081 U.S. servicemen had been killed, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

Alright I read the thing, now I'm looking for these "other" studys that post the death count at such a smaller number

I'll not say I don't think the 100k is incorrect but SOMETHING sure as hell is not freken jellling when we have a MAGNITUDE more deaths that is reported elsewhere by this study

The biggest problem I find with this study is this though

o conduct the survey, investigators visited 33 neighborhoods spread evenly across the country in September, randomly selecting clusters of 30 households to sample. Of the 988 households visited, 808, consisting of 7,868 people, agreed to participate in the survey. At each one they asked how many people lived in the home and how many births and deaths there had been since January 2002.

The problem with this method is simply the fact that the entire country was not at War, most of the Country infact was untouched completly by the war
A list of what citys we did and did not bomb will probably not be publicly aviable or declassified anytime soon but just going of simply where the troop movements were reported and the after action reports that CNN and FOX were running after the fall of Bagdad detailing troop movements I'm roughing it at saying that a good 60% of the Country never saw a US Solider during the conflict


So sampling the entire country VS what was shelled bombed/blow up is what concerning me

[Gambler]

The problem with this method is simply the fact that the entire country was not at War, most of the Country infact was untouched completly by the war
A list of what citys we did and did not bomb will probably not be publicly aviable or declassified anytime soon but just going of simply where the troop movements were reported and the after action reports that CNN and FOX were running after the fall of Bagdad detailing troop movements I'm roughing it at saying that a good 60% of the Country never saw a US Solider during the conflict

So sampling the entire country VS what was shelled bombed/blow up is what concerning me

You are only considering the direct deaths produced by bombs or gunfire. The infrastructure of the country was bombed. I mean people tend to get sick if they don't have clean drinking water or enough food. Also consider all the people killed by the militias or insurgents with those car bombs etc.
So in conclusion I think we can safely say that most deaths didn't happen because of direct US bomb hits but because of other consequences of this war.

[Thinkmarble]

So in conclusion I think we can safely say that most deaths didn't happen because of direct US bomb hits but because of other consequences of this war.

The most common causes of death before the invasion of Iraq were heart attacks, strokes and other chronic diseases. However, after the invasion, violence was recorded as the primary cause of death and was mainly attributed to coalition forces - with about 95 percent of those deaths caused by bombs or fire from helicopter gunships.

[Gambler]

The most common causes of death before the invasion of Iraq were heart attacks, strokes and other chronic diseases. However, after the invasion, violence was recorded as the primary cause of death and was mainly attributed to coalition forces - with about 95 percent of those deaths caused by bombs or fire from helicopter gunships.

Hmm, so I was wrong. Seems like coalition forces have been more trigger happy than I imagined.

[SyntaxVorlon]

I wonder how this compares to the death count that Saddam has? Because now, if we hadn't gone in but had worked him out of power via political means, 101000 people might be alive now who are otherwise dead.

[Iceberg]

I wonder how this compares to the death count that Saddam has? Because now, if we hadn't gone in but had worked him out of power via political means, 101000 people might be alive now who are otherwise dead.

That's fucking weak and you know it.

[Yarcamos]

I wonder how this compares to the death count that Saddam has? Because now, if we hadn't gone in but had worked him out of power via political means, 101000 people might be alive now who are otherwise dead.

That's fucking weak and you know it.

Is it untrue though?

[CJvR]

That figure sounds hugely inflated and rather unreliable, the data from one city would alter the outcome by 100%? Also comparing it to data from the Saddam era, how accurate is that data when state goons escorted every foreigner everywhere. Does the violent death include Saddam's torture chambers or only street violence? If this was accurate the US forces would have to kill about 150-200 people/day with 100+ of those being civilians, however the ones tareting civilians in Iraq is mainly A-Q. If a car bomb goes off in the street and the victims relatives blame the US how is that recorded in this investigation?

[Coyote]

So 95,000 deaths are attributed to helicopter gunships in particular? How did they figure that? Who examined the bodies and what death certificates were filed?

A figure of around 100,000 is believable (it's been almost two years now), but it is hard to believe that they know one way or another that helicopters in particular did most of it.

Did they consider Iraqis in the vicinity of car bombs and the like that were detonated at the approach of coalition forces as 'died as a result of coalition action'?

[Yarcamos]

The scientists who wrote the report concede that the data they based their projections on were of "limited precision," because the quality of the information depends on the accuracy of the household interviews used for the study

And why exactly is everyone here giving so much stock to this report when this is implicity spelled out?

The report was released just days before the U.S. presidential election, and the lead researcher said he wanted it that way.

Sounds a little fishy. They want it to be released right before the election? Sounds like they have a political agenda involved and not just fact-finding.

"I emailed it in on Sept. 30 under the condition that it came out before the election," Roberts told The Asocciated Press. "My motive in doing that was not to skew the election. My motive was that if this came out during the campaign, both candidates would be forced to pledge to protect civilian lives in Iraq

This is the explanation he uses then to the timing of the article. Interesting. Even IF this is true, it doesn't wipe away the fact that a survey should show results, not be interpreted any which way you please.

However, it's possible that they may have zoned in on hotspots that might not be representative of the death toll across Iraq, said Peto, a professor of medical statistics at Oxford University in England.

And again, more reason to believe this could be hugely inflated numbers.

[theski]

Already de-bunked...

The Lancet: A Casualty of Politics

By Tim Worstall Published 10/29/2004


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TCS




There is a report out today in The Lancet (discussed here in the Guardian) which attempts to measure the number of deaths from coalition actions in Iraq. Here is how it is being reported:



"About 100,000 Iraqi civilians -- half of them women and children -- have died in Iraq since the invasion, mostly as a result of airstrikes by coalition forces, according to the first reliable study of the death toll from Iraqi and US public health experts. "



A major story if true. One does not have to be a partisan Democrat to "question the timing" of an announcement; indeed one does not even have to be a potential voter in the US elections next week to think that there is something a little, um, odd, about the timing of this paper. For, as we are told:



"Last night the Lancet medical journal fast-tracked the survey to publication on its website after rapid, but extensive peer review and editing because, said Lancet editor Richard Horton, "of its importance to the evolving security situation in Iraq". But the findings raised important questions also for the governments of the United Sates and Britain who, said Dr Horton in a commentary, "must have considered the likely effects of their actions for civilians". "



The full justification for the early publication is given by the Editor:



"Roberts and his colleagues submitted their work to us at the beginning of October. Their paper has been extensively peer-reviewed, revised, edited, and fast-tracked to publication because of its importance to the evolving security situation in Iraq. But these findings also raise questions for those far removed from Iraq -- in the governments of the countries responsible for launching a pre-emptive war. In planning this war, the coalition forces -- especially those of the US and UK -- must have considered the likely effects of their actions for civilians. And these consequences presumably influenced deployments of armed forces, provision of supplies, and investments in building a safe and secure physical and human infrastructure in the post-war setting. With the admitted benefit of hindsight and from a purely public health perspective, it is clear that whatever planning did take place was grievously in error. The invasion of Iraq, the displacement of a cruel dictator, and the attempt to impose a liberal democracy by force have, by themselves, been insufficient to bring peace and security to the civilian population. Democratic imperialism has led to more deaths not fewer.



"This political and military failure continues to cause scores of casualties among non-combatants. It is a failure that deserves to be a serious subject for research. But this report is more than a piece of academic investigation."



More than a piece of academic investigation? Really? Are we sure? We don't think that publishing this, in fact fast-tracking it (A more normal "academic" paper would take up to six months to wend its way through the peer-review process and the raw data for this was only collected six and seven weeks ago.) has anything at all to do with an election in the US some four days away? Good grief man, what do you take us for, morons?



At the very least one would have to add The Lancet to that list of mainstream media which are worth 15% (or is it 5% now, the left have never really been any good at numbers) to John Kerry in the polls. What makes it a great deal worse is this, from the findings to the report. In fact, these are the findings in their totality:



"The risk of death was estimated to be 2.5-fold (95% CI 1.6-4.2) higher after the invasion when compared with the preinvasion period. Two-thirds of all violent deaths were reported in one cluster in the city of Falluja. If we exclude the Falluja data, the risk of death is 1.5-fold (1.1-2.3) higher after the invasion. We estimate that 98 000 more deaths than expected (8000-194 000) happened after the invasion outside of Falluja and far more if the outlier Falluja cluster is included. The major causes of death before the invasion were myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular accidents, and other chronic disorders whereas after the invasion violence was the primary cause of death. Violent deaths were widespread, reported in 15 of 33 clusters, and were mainly attributed to coalition forces. Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children. The risk of death from violence in the period after the invasion was 58 times higher (95% CI 8.1-419) than in the period before the war."



Have a look at those confidence levels. Yup, 95%. That is, a one in twenty chance that the effect simply does not exist. Look at the relative risk ratios (leave out Falluja; I don't think anyone is really very surprised to see a higher mortality rate there): 1.1-2.3. It isn't just that it is an absurdly wide one (note, a relative risk ratio of 1 would mean no effect whatsoever) it is that if this paper was written to generally accepted statistical standards it would never have been published. With a 95% confidence level a relative risk ratio of anything less than three is regarded as statistically insignificant. Just to clarify that, by "insignificant" no one is stating that it is not important to those people who undoubtedly have been killed during the War. What is being said is that we don't have enough information to be able to say anything meaningful about it. "Statistically insignificant" means "we don't know".



In effect, what has been found in this paper is nothing. Nada. Zip.



Except of course that one of the two leading medical journals in the world has published a piece of shoddy research four days before the US elections with the obvious motive of influencing them. Sad, that, and my apologies as an Englishman that it should be one of my countrymen who did such a thing.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/102904J.html

[Master of Ossus]

Have a look at those confidence levels. Yup, 95%. That is, a one in twenty chance that the effect simply does not exist. Look at the relative risk ratios (leave out Falluja; I don't think anyone is really very surprised to see a higher mortality rate there): 1.1-2.3. It isn't just that it is an absurdly wide one (note, a relative risk ratio of 1 would mean no effect whatsoever) it is that if this paper was written to generally accepted statistical standards it would never have been published. With a 95% confidence level a relative risk ratio of anything less than three is regarded as statistically insignificant. Just to clarify that, by "insignificant" no one is stating that it is not important to those people who undoubtedly have been killed during the War. What is being said is that we don't have enough information to be able to say anything meaningful about it. "Statistically insignificant" means "we don't know".

That's a retarded misapplication of statistics. The 95% confidence interval DOES NOT MEAN that there's a 5% chance the effect "doesn't exist." It means that there's a 95% chance that the true mean (denoted "mu") lies within that interval. There's a 2.5% chance that the true mean is higher or lower than that interval. Whoever wrote that didn't know what the fuck they were talking about.

Having said that, the study itself is absurd since it relies on people to correctly recall the dead, how they were killed, who was killed, etc. When similar studies were done in American cities during the Industrial Revolution (and then checked by mortuary records), they overstated the death rate by almost three fold since people did things like report family friends as family members and similar things that would invalidate the study. I would have to look more carefully at the methodology used to place my stamp of approval on this.

[Mr Bean]

The most common causes of death before the invasion of Iraq were heart attacks, strokes and other chronic diseases. However, after the invasion, violence was recorded as the primary cause of death and was mainly attributed to coalition forces - with about 95 percent of those deaths caused by bombs or fire from helicopter gunships.

Hmm, so I was wrong. Seems like coalition forces have been more trigger happy than I imagined.

Agian bringing up the problem, they visted cities the coalition never did and still got death reports from COALLITON Fire, given the lack of a highly moble populas, what do you think the chance are they interviewed all the folks who took weekend trips to Bagdad?
Did they vist Kurd towns? Villages? , did they vist the areas near Saudi? Without know which cities they went to its impossible to draw anything firm from this study, thus its problem

[Master of Ossus]

The most common causes of death before the invasion of Iraq were heart attacks, strokes and other chronic diseases. However, after the invasion, violence was recorded as the primary cause of death and was mainly attributed to coalition forces - with about 95 percent of those deaths caused by bombs or fire from helicopter gunships.

Hmm, so I was wrong. Seems like coalition forces have been more trigger happy than I imagined.

Agian bringing up the problem, they visted cities the coalition never did and still got death reports from COALLITON Fire, given the lack of a highly moble populas, what do you think the chance are they interviewed all the folks who took weekend trips to Bagdad?
Did they vist Kurd towns? Villages? , did they vist the areas near Saudi? Without know which cities they went to its impossible to draw anything firm from this study, thus its problem

The problem with Gambler's statement is more obvious than that: How the fuck do the relatives know who killed their relatives? Some of them doubtless watched an isolated helicopter gunship kill their relatives, but a HUGE fraction of them will be going off of second-hand reports or even making stuff up.

Think about this scenario: a roadside bomb goes off, killing three people and wounding eight others. An American helicopter crew sees the explosion from their orbit, and swoops in to check it out. The stunned crowd on the ground has just seen an explosion and a few seconds later they see an American helicopter. Who do they think just blew away their friends?

Here's another scenario: Some American soldiers are hanging out on a street corner in Falujah when a group of armed gunmen attack them. The gunmen fire an RPG, which misses the Americans and hits a nearby street. The Americans return fire, but the gunmen escape. Who do the Iraqis blame the deaths on? The situation would obviously be more complicated if some people were killed in the cross-fire between the two sides, but it seems obvious that the propensity to blame the Americans would create problems with the accuracy of the survey.
When you further factor in the propensity of people to lie about things like this (either because they don't like American troops in their country or because they think it's what the pollsters want to hear), you wind up with these gigantic flaws in the survey's methodology. Instead of answering how many people the American military operations have killed in Iraq, you answer the question "How many deaths are blamed on the Americans?" The two are hugely different questions, and invalidate this survey as a reasonable way of garnering information.

[Thinkmarble]

Already de-bunked...

Tech Central Station can not debunk anything.
They are political attacks dogs paid for denigrating science (eg. global warming, second hand smoke) and incompetent to boot.


Some Countercritique
And in regards to Tech Central Station

[Mr Bean]

Tech Central Station can not debunk anything.

Wrong, if the most partisan cocksucker on the planet speaks the truth, no matter how scewed or fucked up they are, if its the truth, its still the fucking truth

The Emperor is naked regardless if the boy points it out or Kerry or Bush

[Thinkmarble]

Tech Central Station can not debunk anything.

Wrong, if the most partisan cocksucker on the planet speaks the truth, no matter how scewed or fucked up they are, if its the truth, its still the fucking truth

The Emperor is naked regardless if the boy points it out or Kerry or Bush

That was more a statement about their skills and abilities then anything else.

[Mr Bean]

Tech Central Station can not debunk anything.

Wrong, if the most partisan cocksucker on the planet speaks the truth, no matter how scewed or fucked up they are, if its the truth, its still the fucking truth

The Emperor is naked regardless if the boy points it out or Kerry or Bush

That was more a statement about their skills and abilities then anything else.

The problem is your using one indepdant website to disprove another indepant website, niether of which I have run into until today so I call both suspect