Birth Pangs

A new epidemiological study by Iraqi and American public health experts sponsored by Johns Hopkins and published in the Lancet has concluded that there have been 655,000 "excess deaths" in Iraq since the American invasion. Kevin Drum reminds us that an earlier methodologically similar study that also came to striking conclusions about the death toll was widely dismissed by hawkish pundits and the establishment press, but none of their objections actually held any water. Kevin also runs the numbers so we can see that of these 655,000 deaths about 186,000 -- 4,700 per month -- were killed by coalition forces or airstrikes.

That, obviously, is a lot. And it ought to be sobering to anyone who still thinks of this as an operation that's justifiable on anything remotely resembling humanitarian grounds, or that people who oppose the war can somehow be accused of indifference to the fate of the Iraqi people. This is a ghastly level of death under any circumstances, but it's rendered all the more horrifying by the extreme self-righteousness with which it's all been undertaken.

Comments

As she was standing to one side, a devata recited this verse to the Blessed One:

Having killed what
do you sleep in ease?
Having killed what
do you not grieve?
Of the slaying
of what one thing
does Gotama approve?

[The Buddha:]

Having killed anger
you sleep in ease.
Having killed anger
you do not grieve.
The noble ones praise
the slaying of anger
— with its honeyed crest
& poison root —
for having killed it
you do not grieve.

Posted by Hollywood | October 11, 2006 9:58 AM

It's not people who "oppose the war" who are indifferent. It's people who in the same breath complain about the deaths (whatever the correct number) and then proceed to advocate, as if it somehow logically or morally follows, that we cede that territory lock stock to the people doing the killing.

You, Matthew, do not "oppose the war". Get off it. Why do you speak this way? Why do you get away with speaking this way? The "war" would not cease if you got your policy preference. And your policy preference has nothing to do with "opposing" "the war" per se. If you "opposed the war" you would be spending the bulk of your time complaining about the people actually engaged in waging the war - who are, for the most part, *not* Americans at this point. You do not.

Instead, you are in favor of ceding that territory to the people doing the killing. Your primary interest is that American personnel not be in the vicinity of the "war", not that the "war" should cease. Those are different things, which you do not seem to understand. For you, "the war" is somehow synonymous with whether American personnel are engaged. If American personnel were withdrawn, "the war" would "end". Right?

You wanna talk about self-righteousness, the self-righteousness (and solipsism) of pointing at a death toll, saying we should (therefore?) cede the territory to the killers, and calling it "opposing the war" is a bit much to take as well.

Posted by xmath | October 11, 2006 11:15 AM

So let me ask you a simple question, Matthew:

Where are the bodies?

The Iraq war is extremely well covered by the international news media and is of specific interest to the Arab media in particular, and yet not a single media outlet in the world will independently claim even ten-percent of what this study suggests. Don’t it set off even the slightest alarm bells when a figure this greatly inflated comes across your radar?

A simple, cursory look at the well-respected anti-war site Iraq Body Count will reflect that the maximum number of civilian deaths is less than 50,000.

I know some are completely blinded by partisanship on both sides of this issue, but common sense has to tell you this study (once again timed for release before an election—how convenient, that) is patently absurd.

To buy these conclusions, you have to swallow the impossibility that Reuters, the Associated Press, UPI, the BBC, the New York Times, the Guardian, Robert Fisk, al Manar, al Jazeera, and every other news conglomeration in Iraq are a willful part of the largest cover-up in human history, hiding three times of the number of those killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined (214,000 acording to wikipedia) over the course of three-plus years.

It’s patently absurd.

I know we disagree and disagree strongly over the Iraq war, but even the most rabidly anti-war bloggers should come out strongly against this politically-motivated farce, if for no other reason than to protect your own integrity.

This “study” is a blatant falsehood, and you know it.

So say so.

Posted by Bob Owens | October 11, 2006 11:22 AM

The point is that the high number of deaths means that starting the war in the first place was not justifiable on humanitarian grounds. There are still many people who say (whether or not they really believe it) that the war was justified. These people must be refuted, discredited, disgraced, etc.

The question of what is the most humanitarian course starting now is difficult to answer. According to the study, if we left Iraq, we would not just be ceding the territory to the people doing the killing. We (the coalition forces) are responsible for a significant fraction of the killing. No matter what we do, the situation will probably get even worse for a while before it gets better, regardless of what we do from here. For historical comparisons, just look at the humanitarian disasters in the parition of India or of Bangladesh from Pakistan.

While there is probably no legal action available, I think that in terms of our rhetoric and behavior, the people responsible for this disaster (Bush and co.) should be vilified in the same way that Milosevic and other war criminals were vilified.

Posted by Jim W | October 11, 2006 11:29 AM

Bob Owens, you are quite a sad case morally.

Posted by Ari | October 11, 2006 11:32 AM

FYI, Gateway Pundit has posted the email address and photo of the author of the study. The right wing intimidation machine continues.

"A simple, cursory look at the well-respected anti-war site Iraq Body Count will reflect that the maximum number of civilian deaths is less than 50,000."

Bob, this is flat wrong. IBC is not a scientific study. It is an ongoing tally of only the deaths that get reported in international papers. Therefore, it is is by definition, the lower end of civilian deaths, not a "maximum," as you so confidently yet erroneously assert. Come back with facts, please.

Second, if you have any evidence that this study is flawed, present it. Otherwise, all you've said is that this study does not reflect how you imagine Iraq to be. But that's been true at every step of the war, hasn't it, Bob? Fact-free declarations combined with wishful, magical thinking.

Posted by Dr. Anatole Gavage-Huskanoy | October 11, 2006 11:33 AM

xmath, what part of "about 186,000 -- 4,700 per month -- were killed by coalition forces or airstrikes" don't you understand? Its not just a question of wanting our troops away from the war, its about wanting to stop waging war. That what "opposing the war" means, scare quotes or no.

As an aside, we "cede territory" to the killers every time our Humvees leave the neighborhood, so I'm not sure how xmath has
come to the conclusion that continuing to engage in whack-a-mole is a good strategy.

Oh, and I'm sure Bob Owens knows lots more about excess death rates than Johns Hopkins or peer reviewed journals like the Lancet do.

Posted by DMonteith | October 11, 2006 12:13 PM

If you "opposed the war" you would be spending the bulk of your time complaining about the people actually engaged in waging the war - who are, for the most part, *not* Americans at this point.

Learn conversational English or go play with other people who haven't.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 11, 2006 12:15 PM

Actually, the Lancet study reports that over half of the excess deaths are due to coalition forces. So Bob's got that going for him too.

Posted by neil | October 11, 2006 12:30 PM

The point is that the high number of deaths means that starting the war in the first place was not justifiable on humanitarian grounds.

Your conclusion doesn't follow from your premise.

Posted by Al | October 11, 2006 12:51 PM

Again, none of you want to address the point that if this study is correct, then the media—even those dead-set against the war—have been willfully under-reporting deaths in Iraq by the hundreds of thousands.

So, are all the world's media so incompetent in a war in it's fourth year that they would underreport deaths by a nuclear war's scale, or is this single study, which has nothing in the world corroborating it, flawed?

Come on, folks.

Just use common sense/Occam's razor.

It shouldn’t be that hard.

Posted by Bob Owens | October 11, 2006 12:52 PM

Bob,

How is anyone in the media going to be able to estimate the number of deaths in a country as large as Iraq?

The only reliable way to do that is via a sampling technique, which is what the Johns Hopkins researchers did. Their conclusions could be off if there are unknown biases in how their sample was made. If you believe their sample is biased in some way, then say what you think the bias is.

Posted by Jim W | October 11, 2006 1:19 PM

I don't think the media's incompetent so much as paralyzed by security situation, and unable to accurately cover the violence. Occam's razor won't help you here, Bob, and common sense, like morality, left your side long ago.

Posted by Dr. Anatole Gavage-Huskanoy | October 11, 2006 1:28 PM

So, you really think Iraqis might not notice that several hundred thousand of their nieghbors are missing and not say anything?

You honestly think that an additional 15,500 people dying each month--400-500 per day--wouldn't have been noticed by someone in the past three years ad widely reported?

I give up.

Posted by Bob Owens | October 11, 2006 1:49 PM

Even under normal circumstances, journalists rarely have time for counting things. For statistical data they usually rely on government bureaus, and after that on private organizations that collect data for their own purposes.

The methodology of the Lancet studies is the most thorough way of making such estimates, so it's not surprising that they report higher numbers.

Posted by David Tomlin | October 11, 2006 1:50 PM

So, you really think Iraqis might not notice that several hundred thousand of their nieghbors are missing and not say anything?

Where the hell do you get 'not say anything'? Iraqi blogs, for example, are full of accounts of friends and neighbors being killed.

Posted by David Tomlin | October 11, 2006 1:59 PM

I think Bob's saying that whatever the truth about the number of deaths (and it's a best estimate, not a full accounting), the truthiness feels off. He doesn't feel, in his gut, that the number could be that high. Relatedly, his gut tells him that Hussein is operating a nuclear weapon production program right now in his prison cell.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 11, 2006 2:06 PM

No, SCMT, I think Bob's saying that the other evidence we have - Iraq government stats, Iraq Body Count, the lack of media coverage of 600,000 deaths, etc. - is more persuasive than this study.

Posted by Al | October 11, 2006 2:10 PM

Re: Iraq Body Count. Why would a tally of deaths reported in the newspaper be more persuasive, Al?

"So, you really think Iraqis might not notice that several hundred thousand of their nieghbors are missing and not say anything?"

In fact, I think the majority of Iraqis are seeing the carnage and saying: "Thanks a lot, America, now go home."

Posted by Dr. Anatole Gavage-Huskanoy | October 11, 2006 2:14 PM

Kevin Drum reminds us that an earlier methodologically similar study that also came to striking conclusions about the death toll was widely dismissed by hawkish pundits and the establishment press, but none of their objections actually held any water.

Oh, please! This is just one more sorry attempt by anti-war leftists to use numbers pulled from the usual anal archive to supply a talking point to their troops prior to U.S. elections. The obvious idiocies therein will predictably be repeated by the "anti-war" amen corner with the usual apeals to the alleged "authority" of a "respected medical journal."

The "methodology" of the original study was a farcical charade of mathatematical malpractice based entirely on unverified testimony and extrapolation. Even then it was impossible to hide the fact that the range of acknowledged uncertainty in the "results" spanned better than two orders of magnitude. This wasn't evidence, it was bespoke propaganda. There was no attempt to count actual bodies.

Every study based on counting real corpses turns up numbers an order of magnitude or more lower than this statistical tripe. To believe these packs of lies in the Lancet one would have to believe that - somewhere, somehow - over twice as many bodies as have been pulled from Saddam's decades of mass graves have been miraculously both killed and disposed of unseen in just 3-1/2 years - most of them in the last two.

Fervent war opponents are, of course, prepared to believe - or at least say they do - nearly anything as they frequently demonstrate, not least in these comment threads. Those not given to left-wing hallucinations can be pardoned for requiring a bit more in the way of objective proof of plainly Goebbelsian confabulations.

This is just one more example of a once-reputable journal bartering what remains of its tattered reputation for a pot of message by editors who share the "anti-war" proclivities of the "study" authors. This "study," like its predecessor, is mendacious garbage.

Posted by Dick Eagleson | October 11, 2006 2:15 PM

Al, I take your last comment as a concession that you have nothing substantive to say about the study per se, only other studies and "other evidence."

Posted by Dr. Anatole Gavage-Huskanoy | October 11, 2006 2:18 PM

Why would a tally of deaths reported in the newspaper be more persuasive, Al?

Because the purpose of such tally doesn't appear to be solely to influence the outcome of the '06 election, as is the explicit purpose of the Lancet "studies".

Posted by Al | October 11, 2006 2:22 PM

I'll add that I would have more confidence in the results if they were duplicated by other research not intended as electioneering. Unforturnately, the results have not been so duplicated.

Posted by Al | October 11, 2006 2:24 PM

The Iraq Body Count project relies on English language media reports only, so their sources of death reporting is further limited. Most of the western reporters are holed up in Baghdad, and rely on official summaries. Reporting deaths is a miniscule part of their job in any case, so no one would claim their reporting is even remotely complete.

Even in the crime sensational US only a limited amount of violent deaths are reported in the media.

So to get an accurate estimate of deaths you have to go beyond media reports. The Lancet survey is one legitimate way to do this.

Posted by chew2 | October 11, 2006 2:26 PM

This is just one more sorry attempt by anti-war leftists to use numbers pulled from the usual anal archive to supply a talking point to their troops prior to U.S. elections.

_The Economist_ supported the invasion of Iraq and has steadfastly supported the occupation ever since.

When the first Lancet study came out, _The Economist_ ran a piece with interviews of relevant experts that concluded the study's methodology was sound.

That was one of a number of articles in reputable publications that reached the same conclusion.

It is those who reject these findings who are insisting on believing what they want to believe.

There was no attempt to count actual bodies.

Who says counting bodies is the best way to do this kind of study? Can you cite an authoritative source to that effect?

Posted by David Tomlin | October 11, 2006 2:39 PM

"explicit purpose" ... "intended as electioneering"

Al, can you back these claims up with evidence? I expect you cannot.

Posted by Dr. Anatole Gavage-Huskanoy | October 11, 2006 2:47 PM

Each possible methodology for determining Iraqi deaths has its own range of error. This Johns Hopkins study represents the attempt of peer reviewed epidemiology to determine the number. Any credible critique of the study will need to be much better than the ramblings of this thread, but then that isn't the point really.

Posted by wetzel | October 11, 2006 2:49 PM

Aside from the "bad news for war supporters and by extension the Republican Party (and really, every living, feeling human being)" element, what makes you think the study is a clear case of electioneering, Al?

Posted by Dan | October 11, 2006 2:51 PM

Al, can you back these claims up with evidence? I expect you cannot.

Editors of The Lancet, the London-based medical publication, where an article describing the study is scheduled to appear, decided not to wait for the normal publication date next week, but to place the research online Friday, apparently so it could circulate before the election.

link

As I said, I await duplicate results from researchers not bent on influencing an election. I don't think that's too much to ask for.

Posted by Al | October 11, 2006 2:52 PM

The researchers who did the study were not the editors of The Lancet.

Posted by David Tomlin | October 11, 2006 2:57 PM

Great. There's your incontrovertible proof. Iraqis are doing fine.

Posted by Dan | October 11, 2006 2:59 PM

I don't care whether the researchers want to influence the election or not. That has nothing to do with the validity of their methods. Also, I doubt this report will have any effect on the elections. If anything, considering the mentality of his supporters, a report stating that Bush has killed a lot more Muslims than previously thought will probably have a mobilizing effect.

Posted by Jim W | October 11, 2006 3:02 PM

The bodies are being hidden in abandoned Baltimore row houses.

Sorry, there's nothing funny about this, but I couldn't resist

Posted by nevartm | October 11, 2006 3:09 PM

I don't care whether the researchers want to influence the election or not. That has nothing to do with the validity of their methods.

Theoretically true. But your side has always felt free to dismiss research based solely on the motivation of the researchers. Think, for example, of the dismissals of tobacco company-sponsored research. So don't tell me NOW that, all of a sudden, the motivation of the researchers is irrelevant.

Posted by Al | October 11, 2006 3:13 PM

I almost hesitate to provide this, as some of you are certain to claim that they're simple in on the conspiracy:

THE Iraqi Government described as "exaggerated" an independent US study which estimated that 655,000 Iraqis had died since the 2003 US invasion.

US President George W. Mr Bush had similarly called the report "not credible".

The study estimated that one Iraqi in 40 had died as a result of the conflict by comparing the death rates from the period before the war to the period from March 2003 to June 2006.

"This figure, which in reality has no basis, is exaggerated," said Iraqi government spokesman Ali Debbagh.

"It is a figure which flies in the face of the most obvious truths," he said, calling on research institutions to adopt precise and transparent criteria especially when the research concerns victim tolls.

So according to the Iraqis, this study has no basis in reality and flies in the face of obvious truths.

But go ahead and believe the guy in Baltimore versus the one in Baghdad. He is the one telling you what you want to believe, after all.

Posted by Bob Owens | October 11, 2006 3:18 PM

BTW, I always thought that the most persuasive reason to dismiss the research is that the researchers claim that the death rate in Iraq pre-war was ~5.5 (~5.0 in the 2004 study) per 1,000 people. The US death rate is ~8.5 per 1,000 people. Soooo, the researchers are telling me that the death rate in Iraq, pre-war - when supposedly the UN sanctions were killing thousands of Iraqi children - was less than 2/3 the US rate? Riiiiiight.

Posted by Al | October 11, 2006 3:19 PM

"but to place the research online Friday, apparently so it could circulate before the election."

As David Tomlin said, characterizing Lancet editors with "apparently" is in no way evidence that the JHU research has an "explicit purpose... intended as electioneering," as you claimed. Do you have evidence, Al, or will you retract your baseless claim?

"But your side" -- again, your claim about the political motivations of JHU study have nothing to do with "but your side." Stick to the study and it's authors, please, Al, or admit that you are more comfortable with fantasies, not reality.

Posted by Dr. Anatole Gavage-Huskanoy | October 11, 2006 3:21 PM

Bob:

Close your eyes, put your hands on your stomach, and determine what the correct number is. Take your time: we're looking for accuracy, not speed.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 11, 2006 3:28 PM

Soooo, the researchers are telling me that the death rate in Iraq, pre-war - when supposedly the UN sanctions were killing thousands of Iraqi children - was less than 2/3 the US rate?

I think this may be a function of the age of the population. As the guy at the Corner noted, 13 per 1000 is about where Cameroon sits, and the UK is at 10. I don't think of either of those places as peculiarly violent, and I think (perhaps wrongly) of the UK as less violent than the US.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 11, 2006 3:30 PM

Is violence the main determinant of death rates, SCMT? I wouldn't think so - probably health care.

Posted by Al | October 11, 2006 3:35 PM

BTW - the WHO's pre-war death rate for Iraq was more than 9 per 1,000. link. Again, that's awfully different than the Lancet study. Perhaps the WHO was wrong and the Lancet right. Who knows.

Posted by Al | October 11, 2006 3:39 PM

Gosh, "who knows" is a lot less confident than your earlier strutting assertions that the "explicit purpose" of the report was "solely to influence the outcome of the '06 election." Are you doing the honorable thing and withdrawing your baseless claims, Al? Or will you present real evidence? Or will you merely do neither?

Posted by Dr. Anatole Gavage-Huskanoy | October 11, 2006 3:54 PM

Unfortunately, you can't trust the Iraqi government when it comes to recording civilian deaths, Bob.

From 2003: Iraq's Health Ministry has ordered a halt to a count of civilians killed during the war and told its statistics department not to release figures compiled so far, the official who oversaw the count told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2003/dec/11/iraqs_health_ministry/

Posted by Dr. Anatole Gavage-Huskanoy | October 11, 2006 4:00 PM

I almost hesitate to provide this, as some of you are certain to claim that they're simply in on the conspiracy . . .

The Iraqi government is not a disinterested party.

As for 'conspiracy', that inference depends on the assumption I have already challenged, and which you have not defended, that journalists have some independent means of estimating death tolls. The journalists are themselves dependent on the government for their numbers, so no 'conspiracy' is required.

Posted by David Tomlin | October 11, 2006 4:02 PM

"Where are the bodies?"

This is a good question but according to Juan Cole, there's a good answer: there are two major reasons that most bodies never pass through a morgue: (i): Muslim tradition demands that bodies are buried the day of the death in a simple wooden box, so there's natural resistance and, (ii) while there are incentives for taking bodies to the morque to counteract this, they're overwhelmed by the fact that the government is so infiltrated with death-dealing militias at this point that nobody wants to put their name on any sort of government form if they can help it.

http://www.juancole.com/2006/10/655000-dead-in-iraq-since-bush.html

Posted by Mark Barton | October 11, 2006 4:08 PM

Is violence the main determinant of death rates, SCMT? I wouldn't think so - probably health care.

I suppose I wasn't very clear. I don't know. But I think the factors that drive death rates vary by country, and that one important factor may be the age profile of the country. I can imagine that countries with very young populations may have lower death rates than expected because young people don't die of heart disease, for example. So Iraq's original 5.5 deaths per thousand (if the number is correct) might have been a function of a young population.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 11, 2006 4:28 PM

Could be. But more likely, the causality is in a reverse direction - countries have a young age profile because they have a higher death rate (thus, not as many people make it to old age to increase the average age).

Posted by Al | October 11, 2006 4:35 PM

Is violence the main determinant of death rates?

I suspect that lack of electricity or clean water contributes to death rates, two thing that have unarguably been worse since we invaded.

Also, Shiite militias/death squads have been operating in the hospitals and morgues of Bagdad, so there's no way that "counting the bodies" or media reports can be considered a reliable method of keeping track.

link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/04/eveningnews/main2064668.shtml

Besides which, even granting the trolls the 2% chance that the numbers are half what the Lancet quotes, we're still talking hundreds of thousands of people here. I don't know why this is so hard for some people to wrap their heads around. Even uncontroversial statistics are hugely bad. Just since January over 10,000 members of the Iraqi security forces have been killed. That's over 1000 per month for the innumerate that "contribute" to this thread. And they are usually much harder targets than maket place car bombings and death squad sweeps that characterize most of the violence. And they presumably aren't getting killed by Americans, so coalition inflicted casualties are added on top of those. So its pretty easy to conservatively imagine 3000-5000 deaths per month from violence alone. Add in the deaths due to infrastructure/health care issues (disease, infant mortality, heat stroke, etc.)created by the war and the Lancet numbers start sounding pretty reasonable.

Posted by DMonteith | October 11, 2006 5:09 PM

According to the CIA world factbook, Iraq's 2006 death rate is estimated at 5.37 deaths/1,000 population.
Their 2002 rate for Iran: 5.39 deaths/1,000 population.
2002 for Iraq: 6.02 deaths/1,000 population.

Make of that what you will, but it doesn't look like the Johns Hopkins number is coming from nowhere. Nor does it look like you have any evidence to back up your assertions about their report's "explicit" and "sole" political purpose, Al, much less the truth of their study.

Posted by Dr. Anatole Gavage-Huskanoy | October 11, 2006 5:10 PM

"BTW - the WHO's pre-war death rate for Iraq was more than 9 per 1,000. link. Again, that's awfully different than the Lancet study. Perhaps the WHO was wrong and the Lancet right. Who knows."

Posted by: Al on October 11, 2006 03:39 PM

CIA wolrd factbook reports it as 6.02/1000 in 2003 and 5.84/1000 in 2003. They don't report it as high as 9 since 1993.

Iraqi median age is under 20 now, and has been decreasing the past few years. Age related death rates should be declining. Birth rates have also declined (from about 45 to 36 per 1000), so infant mortality changes will not have had a significant impact on deaths reported.

Addressing other points...

The Lancet article mentions that studies such as "Iraqi Body Count" rarely account accurately (which is readily admitted to on the site). Other than Bosnia, a post-communist country with meticulous record keeping practices, they generally only register 10-20% of deaths.

The current Lancet article claims a 95% confidence interval for 300,000+ to 900,000+ deaths. The lower end of this is easily reconcileable with IBCs 48,000 reported deaths, given a 10-20% reporting rate.

The old Lancet article was indeed nearly useless. While the methodology was fine, the results were essentially null. It cited a 95% confidence interval for 8,000-194,000 deaths. You can not honestly say that it means there were "about 100,000 deaths". It was dishonest to claim it said that. The present article does not suffer from this deficiency.

Posted by Njorl | October 11, 2006 5:11 PM

According to the CIA world factbook, Iraq's 2006 death rate is estimated at 5.37 deaths/1,000 population

Yet the Lancet says it was 13. Hmmmm.

Posted by Al | October 11, 2006 5:15 PM

Where are the bodies?

With the WMD's and the yellowcake, dipshit.

Posted by Randy Paul | October 11, 2006 5:18 PM

Gotta love the CIA World Factbook. According to the CIA, the following are the 10 countries with the lowest death rates in the world (numbers per 1000 people):

West Bank 3.92 2006 est.
Oman 3.81 2006 est.
Gaza Strip 3.80 2006 est.
Libya 3.48 2006 est.
Brunei 3.45 2006 est.
American Samoa 3.27 2006 est.
Jordan 2.65 2006 est.
Saudi Arabia 2.58 2006 est.
Kuwait 2.41 2006 est.
Northern Mariana Islands 2.29 2006 est.

I don't know about you all, but when I think of the lowest death rates in the world, the West Bank and Gaza Strip come immediately to my mind.

More wonderful work by our CIA!

Posted by Al | October 11, 2006 5:22 PM

With the WMD's and the yellowcake, dipshit

Exactly!

Nonexistent WMDs. Nonexistent yellowcake. Nonexistent dead people!

Posted by Al | October 11, 2006 5:23 PM

Someone get Al some truthier numbers! Stat!

Posted by DMonteith | October 11, 2006 5:25 PM

Regarding the WHO and UN estimate of pre-war death rate of 9 deaths per thousand.

This was reportedly based on an average of the years 1996 through 1999 when the effects of the sanctions were at their worst. I'm not sure what methodology was used. By 2002 and 2003 the years of the "Lancet" 2006 study, the Oil for Food program had reduced these deaths tremendously.

The Lancet 2006 study resulted in a pre-war baseline estimate for 2002-2003 of 5 deaths per thousand. This was nearly the same estimate as the 2004 Lancet study, showing that the methodology was robust over these two different samples.

Regardless of whether the pre-war baseline estimate of 5 deaths per thousand was high or low on an absolute basis, questioning the same households showed a large INCREASE in deaths per thousands after the war to 13 per thousand by 2006 the year of sectarian death squads. So the 13 per thousand may be high or low also, but it is clearly a large increase over the baseline 5 per thousand. That increase is the basis for the claim of 600,000 excess deaths after the war.

Posted by chew2 | October 11, 2006 5:26 PM

The study methodology is simple as can be: survey a random sample of Iraqis and ask them whether anyone in their household died in particular time periods (before and after the invasion). About the only complex thing is the stratified sample design. The Iraqis being surveyed know more than we do about who has died around them, more than Western, English-only reporters huddled in Baghdad hotels do about who has died around them, and more than the Green Zone government does. Indeed, the Iraqi government has not even been trying to count civilian deaths for years.

Apparently, though, "Bob Owens" does know more than the Iraqi people surveyed about whether one of their family members has died recently.

Posted by MQ | October 11, 2006 5:29 PM

Al:

It also says that the percentage of the West Bank population at or below 14 years of age is 42.9%; for comparison, that same age cohort makes up about 17.5% of the UK population.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 11, 2006 5:30 PM

But chew2, if you can't trust the "pre-war baseline estimate" why would you think that you could trust the increase? It certainly appears to me that the "pre-war baseline estimate" is WAAAAAY too low. While it is certainly possible that the pre-war estimate and the post-war estimate are both off, what reason is there to think that they are both off by the same amount?

Posted by Al | October 11, 2006 5:32 PM

There are really only four possibilities here, then:

1) The study is roughly accurate
2) The people being surveyed are systematically mistaken in a manner that affects the before/after invasion difference in deaths.
3) The people being surveyed are lying.
4) The study authors are making up or fabricating data.

So question to the apologists for the invasion: which one of the above is it?

Also, as Chew points out conservatives in denial like Al systematically (deliberately?) misunderstand the study methodology -- the only comparisons going on are within numbers reported in the surveys.

Posted by MQ | October 11, 2006 5:33 PM

SCMT: Again, I think you've got the causality backwards. The under-14 age cohort is high because so many of the over-14's are dying! That doesn't imply a low death rate - it implies a HIGH death rate.

Posted by Al | October 11, 2006 5:35 PM

To the various ney sayers

If you want to argue against this study it would help to try and demonstrate how it is methodologically unsound - not that you find the results counterintuitive or incompatable with your politics. Invoking Occam's Razor (which boils down to saying that you find the results counterintuitive), ad hominom attacks on the percieved political biases or agenda of the researchers or any argument outside of the methodology or analysis of the article is a diversion.

You can't compare it to media reports, which are not a systematic accounting of deaths, or to IBC which is based on english language media reports. Its apples and oranges.

Sure, looking everywhere in Iraq that a body could be kept and counting all of them would be a more absolutely accurate method, but would hardly be realistic. The only way to estimate these numbers is through random sampling. There are flaws involved in sampling, but if you want to throw this study out based on those flaws you should be prepared to throw out every survey, poll, and sampling study out there.

It was published in a respected peer edited journal, which suggests that a) it probably conforms to accepted research methodology and b) it will be subjected to review and any flaws in methodology or analysis will be exposed. So either aquaint yourself enough with the article to make an informed critique, or quit whining.

As I recall the earler Lancet report on Iraqi deaths met with similar whining when it was first published, but was not disproven by any substantive analysis. (if I'm wrong, please point me to it - and by substantive analysis I mean one based on an understanding of the relevant sampling methodology and analysis published in a peer review journal, not a post on Powerline or The Corner).

Posted by Justaguy | October 11, 2006 6:38 PM

Al,

Why is the measured increase in death rates legitimate?

Beause they used the SAME METHODOLOGY to estimate the baseline and the later death rates.

The fact that the Lancet figures may not match whe WHO or other studies is because they use different METHODOLOGIES for estimation and cover different TIME PERIODS.

BTW the WHO tables that you linked to don't make any sense, so I don't think your 9 per thousand is accurate.

If I recall correctly the 2004 Lancet study mentioned that the baseline death rates for Jordan and Syria were also around 5+ per thousand, so a similar value for Iraq is not off.

Many of these questions were dealt with by Tim Lambert over at Crooked Timber at the time of the 2004 Lancet study.

Posted by chew2 | October 11, 2006 6:48 PM

based entirely on unverified testimony and extrapolation.

Unless Iraqis have been forging death certificates solely to influence American politics, you're full of shit.

Shorter Dick Eagleson: 'where are the six million dead Jews? Show me the mass graves! Show me the bodies!'

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | October 11, 2006 9:13 PM

Jim W:

The point is that the high number of deaths means that starting the war in the first place was not justifiable on humanitarian grounds.

Actually, it doesn't, even if that number is correct. Determining whether something is "justifiable on humanitarian grounds" is a complex matter involving more than simple tallies.

No doubt this exact same methodology could be used to link the early-1940s US war against Germany to a large number of statistically "excess" deaths. But would it follow that said war could not be justified on humanitarian grounds?

There are still many people who say (whether or not they really believe it) that the war was justified. These people must be refuted, discredited, disgraced, etc.

Why? The invasion is a historical event now. It occurred. Past tense. There is no undoing it. So why exactly is it so important to refute, discredit....

Oh, sorry, you've got elections to win. Right, my mistake.

No matter what we do, the situation will probably get even worse for a while before it gets better, regardless of what we do from here.

I agree. So explain, then, why "opposing the war" (which in parlance of this and similar blogs seems to mean "favoring US military withdrawal from a place where warfare is occurring") is somehow necessitated or buttressed by pointing at these purported excess-death statistics?

I think that in terms of our rhetoric and behavior, the people responsible for this disaster (Bush and co.) should be vilified in the same way that Milosevic and other war criminals were vilified.

I can feel your high-minded outrage. But why have you so little outrage for the people who are, at present, currently doing the actual bulk of the killing? That is what is so strange. Are they subhuman automatons whose every action is but a chemical response to whatever actions "Bush and co." take? Presumably they are beneath your moral condemnation because they are not Westerners and cannot be expected to behave better anyway.

DMonteith:

xmath, what part of "about 186,000 -- 4,700 per month -- were killed by coalition forces or airstrikes" don't you understand?

DMonteith, what part of "average" don't you understand? That statistic, even if true (which I doubt), is an average over some number of months, among them, oh, April 2003, a month when we were doing many airstrikes, as well as other months when we were presumably doing fewer airstrikes. Is it your contention that these findings imply that we killed 4700 with our coalition forces or airstrikes in September 2006? Is it your contention that these findings give us reason to believe that coalition forces or airstrikes continue to kill their (supposed) 4700 per month, month after month, at present? Because if so, you are committing a fallacy. The same exact fallacy, in fact, committed by rightwing supporters of the invasion who lumped in Saddam's various early-90s massacres with years e.g. 98-02 to inflate the deaths-per-year they could charge him with continuing to cause, so that they could paint invasion as the amelioration of an ongoing humanitarian crisis.

Neither usage of statistics is correct.

Its not just a question of wanting our troops away from the war, its about wanting to stop waging war. That what "opposing the war" means, scare quotes or no.

No, that's what "opposing our participation in the war" would mean, but that's not what y'all claim to be doing. And again, our lack of participation in the war would not cause the war to cease.

It is true of course that US forces stationed there engage in warfare and this does lead to some # of deaths directly, and that withdrawal/"let's us stop waging warfare there", as you are actually advocating, would therefore (as a first-order effect) remove that # from the ongoing death-toll equation, but (1) that number, whatever it is, is not actually calculated by this study, and (2) that's only a first-order effect, of course. To truly predict the overall effect on death rates that our withdrawal would induce would be complex and probably impossible, at least beyond the ken of people using the medical-ish methodology of this type of study. Maybe we'd stop killing N per month in actual military action, but with us gone, in the ensuing power struggle the sectarian violence would actually rise even more, causing >N excess deaths on top of that? Who knows?

I mean, y'all are mostly the same people who blame Bush for sending "not enough troops" to keep a handle on the situation, right? Well which is it, do our troops being there help keep violence down or don't they? You can't simultaneously claim that we don't have enough troops to keep violence down and that if our troops left violence would go down. Something's gotta give here.

As an aside, we "cede territory" to the killers every time our Humvees leave the neighborhood, so I'm not sure how xmath has
come to the conclusion that continuing to engage in whack-a-mole is a good strategy.

What we are doing may not be a good strategy (strategy for what by the way? what do you want to accomplish there - nothing, right? you just want us to leave, right?) but even if so it would not follow that complete withdrawal is better. More to the point, it does not follow that it would lead to fewer deaths (most of which at present are caused by sectarian/tribal violence) which (let's remember) what you are all supposedly so upset about.

The knock against "whack-a-mole", which we are supposedly playing, is that the moles just keep coming, so you should just stop playing. That, at least, would be a valid position. But you can't point to all the grass the moles eat to buttress that position. "Let's stop playing whack-a-mole" is not a solution to the problem of moles-eating-grass, because if we stop whacking the moles will continue to eat the grass, only, this time completely unmolested by our mallets.

Likewise, US military withdrawal from Iraq is not a method of lessening violent deaths in Iraq. Or: if you think it is, make that argument. Don't just point at the # of deaths, many/most? of which are caused by sectarian violence, and then "oppose the war" (=advocate withdrawal) as if the latter follows logically from the former. It does not.

Posted by xmath | October 11, 2006 10:32 PM

So, you really think Iraqis might not notice that several hundred thousand of their nieghbors are missing and not say anything?

Hey, Bob?

They ARE saying something. Each and every time a US soldier gets blown up by an IED...

Posted by Phoenician in a time of Romans | October 11, 2006 10:32 PM

Because the purpose of such tally doesn't appear to be solely to influence the outcome of the '06 election, as is the explicit purpose of the Lancet "studies".

Because, you know, peer-reviewed British medical journals are the vehicle of choice for US political operatives every time...

Posted by Phoenician in a time of Romans | October 11, 2006 10:35 PM

The under-14 age cohort is high because so many of the over-14's are dying!

Al, this won't work at all. 43% of the West Bank's population is under 14; 18% of the UK's population is under 14.

You'd need a ridiculously high death rate for over-14s to account for this difference. If you have 100 people, 18 of whom are under 14, in order to get the population to 43% under 14 you have to kill off 58 people. That's 70% of the over-14 population. (More if some under-14s die.) Now, you've got a few years to accomplish this, but still that's getting close to the level of mortality in concentration camps. No way is this driving the difference in population profile.

More likely, the difference is mostly due to different birth rates.

Posted by Matt Weiner | October 11, 2006 10:53 PM

This morning (Malaysia time), on CNN, one of the authors noted that it's difficult to do such studies in Iraq. Evidently, the researchers couldn't visit many villages and towns. So I have to ask, even if the methodology is sound, even given the best intentions of the authors and researchers, does the data they have collected represent a random sample?

Random samples are preferred because they are representative. It's not clear to me that the sample is representative of the Iraqi population.

Posted by Dale | October 11, 2006 11:58 PM

"The point is that the high number of deaths means that starting the war in the first place was not justifiable on humanitarian grounds.

Actually, it doesn't, even if that number is correct. Determining whether something is "justifiable on humanitarian grounds" is a complex matter involving more than simple tallies.

No doubt this exact same methodology could be used to link the early-1940s US war against Germany to a large number of statistically "excess" deaths. But would it follow that said war could not be justified on humanitarian grounds?

That is just silly. WWII wasn't justified on humanitarian grounds, it was justified at the time by Hitler invading Poland, France, the Soviet Union, etc. Did uplifting the lives of the German people play into the cause for war much? Or was it more the stop Hitler from overrunning Europe angle?

I seem to recall Japan bombing Perl Harbor having something to do with it as well (but I did go to public school, so my grasp of history is a little iffy).

Posted by Justaguy | October 12, 2006 1:22 AM

Thanks xmath, my grip on the concept of averaging was getting a bit shaky there. Can we do a follow up on long division or maybe fractions next?

Remedial arithmetic aside, you yourself admit "it is true of course that US forces stationed there engage in warfare and this does lead to some # of deaths directly". I don't know the current rate of coalition inflicted casualties or how it compares to other time periods throughout the war, but you seem to think that its lower now than earlier. Any data on that?

What we do have available to us is the two Lancet studies, which, while they don't seperate out direct coalition inflicted casualties, they do provide useful information about changing overall death rates. The first study, after one year of war, claimed 100,000 dead and the second, two years later, claims 600,000 dead. Regardless of the actual numbers, given the same methodology, it is obvious that the death rate has accelerated over the last two years. If it hadn't, then one would expect the second report to claim 300,000 dead after 3 years, not 600,000.

This is the crux of the matter. Things are getting worse in Iraq even though we are "staying the course". You say things will get even worse even faster if we leave, but there is no guarantee that that won't happen anyway even if we stay. As you so aptly put it "Who knows?

What we do know is that if we leave, then we won't be killing anyone directly, our own soldiers won't be getting killed there, we won't be spending hundreds of billions of dollars over there and we might even be able to send some of the troops over to Afganistan in time to prevent that war from following in Iraq's footsteps. Your pointing to the horror of what might happen in Iraq if we leave fails to grasp that the horror is already there, out of our control.

"No, that's what "opposing our participation in the war" would mean, but that's not what y'all claim to be doing." Oh touche! I've been caught by the distinction between "opposing the war" and "opposing [our participation in] the war". Well played, sir! On to what the meaning of is is!

Look, it's real simple: I'm opposed to our troops remaining in Iraq and I'm opposed to Iraqis killing each other in ever larger numbers. As things stand, I am likely to be disappointed on both fronts. If we leave, then I will only be disappointed on one of these issues. Also, as an American citizen of voting age, the question of whether we stay or go is the only one that I have any influence on(infinitesimal though it may be). I have no illusions that our withdrawal will improve things in Iraq but I'm not convinced that things will get much worse than they already are. It's hard to imagine things much worse than death squads operating in hospitals and hundreds of tortured bodies found on roadsides.

Posted by DMonteith | October 12, 2006 3:54 AM

I for one want to hear more about Al's Reverse Causality Conspiracy involving the CIA and the public health professions. Until I read his posts above, I honestly never considered the possibility that America's spy agency and doctors worldwide could be manipulating death rates in places like the West Bank in order to support the Iraqi insurgency and make the U.S. look bad. When you make that logical leap, it all becomes so easy to explain, doesn't it?

Oh, dear, here's a thought: what if the CIA and the doctors are working together in some countries, *elevating* death rates in the United States, for instance, in order to further their conspiracy? There's only one way they could do that: personally, from now on when I'm in hospital I'll be sleeping with one eye open!

Posted by BruceR | October 12, 2006 9:29 AM

xmath,

My point was to separate the two issues: the justification, on humanitarian grounds, of 1) the war in the first place; and 2) our continued participiation in it.

While you are right that one cannot answer the first question with certainty, anyone with common sense will see that, due to the large number of people who have been killed, it was not justified. The comparison to WWII doesn't work. If we had not opposed Germany, a lot more people would have died than actually did.

The reason that the people who are behind the war need to be disgraced, shunned, etc, is that this is how public morality works. If, anytime someone commits an evil act, you say: "Oh well, that's in the past. Let's just deal with the future", then you will end up with an immoral society, and the perpetration of more evil acts in the future.

Posted by Jim W | October 12, 2006 10:21 AM

xmath,

One more thing. I never said in my post that I favored withdrawing our troops now. I said that the conditions of Iraqis would probably deteriorate regardless of what we do. I honestly don't know if keeping our troops in or removing them now will be more beneficial to Iraqis. I do know that people should not conflate the two meanings of the phrase "opposing the war" that I made above.

Posted by Jim W | October 12, 2006 10:27 AM

"According to the CIA world factbook, Iraq's 2006 death rate is estimated at 5.37 deaths/1,000 population

Yet the Lancet says it was 13. Hmmmm."

Posted by: Al on October 11, 2006 05:15 PM

That was the whole point of doing research. They hypothesized that deaths were being under-recorded during the present strife due to many causes. Their thesis is essentially that accepted death rates are inaccurate. Demonstrating that their methods reproduce accepted pre-war death rates, but not occupation death rates is the whole point of what they did, and yet you offer the brilliant refutation that their results do not replicate accepted death rates during the occupation!

Posted by Njorl | October 12, 2006 11:27 AM

1 dead for every 4 randomly selected home. That’s bad no matter how you look at it. (They interviewed 1,840 random people and found over 500 dead - 92% of those showed the death certificate)

If you think about it we’ve dropped over 240,000 cluster bombs. We’d be fools to think they didn’t kill anyone. Add in gunfire and car bombs and 600,000 dead doesn’t seem that big.

Posted by Engineer | October 12, 2006 11:31 AM

"So I have to ask, even if the methodology is sound, even given the best intentions of the authors and researchers, does the data they have collected represent a random sample?"

It is certainly far from perfect. However, the biases of the surveying method tend to under-report deaths. Entire households that were killed off would not be reported. Areas that were too unsafe to be included can be expected to have higher than average death rates. Competing biases in the other direction would be inherently better preservation of newer information, and the possibility that areas that suffered more would be more willing to cooperate to get the message out. While it is only opinion, it seems to me that the biases would tend to hide an even more serious situation.

Posted by Njorl | October 12, 2006 11:44 AM

"1 dead for every 4 randomly selected home. That’s bad no matter how you look at it. (They interviewed 1,840 random people and found over 500 dead - 92% of those showed the death certificate)"

and yet:

"""Where are the bodies?"

This is a good question but according to Juan Cole, there's a good answer: there are two major reasons that most bodies never pass through a morgue: (i): Muslim tradition demands that bodies are buried the day of the death in a simple wooden box, so there's natural resistance and, (ii) while there are incentives for taking bodies to the morque to counteract this, they're overwhelmed by the fact that the government is so infiltrated with death-dealing militias at this point that nobody wants to put their name on any sort of government form if they can help it.""

92% of the same people who don't take their relatives' bodies to a morgue out of fear of the authorities, or religious tradition, can produce a death certificate from those same authorities?

Maybe Juan Cole doesn't know what he's talking about (maybe...), or maybe the 92% death certificate count is bogus, or maybe the study had a slanted sample population. But all three (people don't take bodies to morgues, 92% of families have a death certificate, and the sample population is representative) can't be true.

Sk

Posted by Steve | October 12, 2006 4:29 PM

But all three (people don't take bodies to morgues, 92% of families have a death certificate, and the sample population is representative) can't be true.

Any doctor can sign a death certificate. The existence of a death certificate doesn't mean the body was ever at a morgue.

When my grandparents died, they went to funeral homes and into the ground. They were never at a morgue. In my country (USA) it is usually unidentified or unclaimed bodies that go to morgues, which I would think means the majority do not.

As for the central government not having a complete count of registered deaths, perhaps this fledgling democracy does not have the most efficient bureaucracy in the world.

Posted by David Tomlin | October 13, 2006 12:39 AM