100,000 Dead Iraqis Probably Accurate.

[reprehensor]

Dead Iraqis: Why an Estimate was Ignored

Last fall, a major public-health study appeared in The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, only to be missed or dismissed by the American press. To the extent it was covered at all, the reports were short and usually buried far from the front pages of major newspapers. The results of the study could have played an important role in future policy decisions, but the press’s near total silence allowed the issue to pass without debate.

The study, though scientifically robust, had several elements working against it. One was its subject matter: Researchers had done a door-to-door survey of nearly 8,000 people in thirty-three locations in Iraq to estimate how many people had died as a consequence of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation. Americans, and their media, were reluctant to accept the study’s conclusions — that the number was likely around 100,000; that violence had become the primary cause of death since the invasion; that more than half of those killed were women and children.

snip

Reporters’ unease about the wide range may have been a primary reason many didn’t cover the study. One columnist, Fred Kaplan of Slate, called the estimate “meaningless” and labeled the range “a dart board.”

But he was wrong. I called about ten biostatisticians and mortality experts. Not one of them took issue with the study’s methods or its conclusions. If anything, the scientists told me, the authors had been cautious in their estimates. With a quick call to a statistician, reporters would have found that the probability forms a bell curve — the likelihood is very small that the number of deaths fell at either extreme of the range. It was very likely to fall near the middle.

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Counting the Dead in Iraq

In 2004 the US-based scientist Dr Les Roberts led a survey into deaths caused by the invasion of Iraq. His results showed that approximately 100,000 Iraqis had been killed after the invasion. He spoke to Joseph Choonara about his survey...

Joseph Choonara: Your research on mortality in Iraq, published in the prestigious Lancet journal, made headlines across the globe last November. What motivated you to conduct the survey?

Dr Les Roberts: This is about the ninth “hot war” I’ve worked in. In most wars people are killed more by disease and disruption than by bullets and bombs. But when I read the newspaper reports on the war, all I heard about were the bullets and bombs. I didn’t think the reports were describing the suffering of the Iraqis very well.

I thought it would serve the interests of Iraqis if I described what they were really dying of. So, if we found they were dying of diarrhoea we could do something about that.

If they were dying at home in childbirth because they were too scared to go to hospital, we could do something about that. Much to our surprise we found that these things weren’t what they were dying of. Most were dying violent deaths.

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[Frederik]

1. I knew this

when the study came out last fall. It's a statistically sound, thorough study done by people who know what they're doing. The data collection ended mid-2004, so it's got to be much more than 100,000 by now. It's a meaningless slaughter that history will not judge kindly.

[stellanoir]

2. betchya

it's pushing 200,000 by now. And our casualties are most likely grossly under reported as well. I can believe it's come to this. And the media continues to spin, spin, spin.

I've said since the onset that Bush's plan to convert Iraq into Switzerland and in the process turn our economy into that of Argentina, with no knowledge of Iraqi culture would be utterly disastrous.

I hate to be right in these instances.

I truly do.

[Selatius]

3. The corporate news media tricks America once again

"Go back to sleep, America! There's nothing to see here!"

[chlamor]

4. thanx

Basra, Iraq. March 11, 2005.



“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.” – President Bush, 5/1/03