655,000 dead Iraqis because of invasion and occupation

[TurretMonkey]

(from Yahoo news AP report)


NEW YORK - A controversial new study contends nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war, suggesting a far higher death toll than other estimates.

The timing of the survey's release, just a few weeks before the U.S. congressional elections, led one expert to call it "politics."

In the new study, researchers attempt to calculate how many more Iraqis have died since March 2003 than one would expect without the war. Their conclusion, based on interviews of households and not a body count, is that about 600,000 died from violence, mostly gunfire. They also found a small increase in deaths from other causes like heart disease and cancer.

"Deaths are occurring in Iraq now at a rate more than three times that from before the invasion of March 2003," Dr. Gilbert Burnham, lead author of the study, said in a statement.

The study by Burnham, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and others is to be published Thursday on the Web site of The Lancet, a medical journal.

An accurate count of Iraqi deaths has been difficult to obtain, but one respected group puts its rough estimate at closer to 50,000. And at least one expert was skeptical of the new findings.

"They're almost certainly way too high," said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. He criticized the way the estimate was derived and noted that the results were released shortly before the Nov. 7 election.

"This is not analysis, this is politics," Cordesman said.

The work updates an earlier Johns Hopkins study — that one was released just before the November 2004 presidential election. At the time, the lead researcher, Les Roberts of Hopkins, said the timing was deliberate. Many of the same researchers were involved in the latest estimate.

Speaking of the new study, Burnham said the estimate was much higher than others because it was derived from a house-to-house survey rather than approaches that depend on body counts or media reports.

A private group called Iraqi Body Count, for example, says it has recorded about 44,000 to 49,000 civilian Iraqi deaths. But it notes that those totals are based on media reports, which it says probably overlook "many if not most civilian casualties."

For Burnham's study, researchers gathered data from a sample of 1,849 Iraqi households with a total of 12,801 residents from late May to early July. That sample was used to extrapolate the total figure. The estimate deals with deaths up to July.

The survey participants attributed about 31 percent of violent deaths to coalition forces.

Accurate death tolls have been difficult to obtain ever since the Iraq conflict began in March 2003. When top Iraqi political officials cite death numbers, they often refuse to say where the numbers came from.

The Health Ministry, which tallies civilian deaths, relies on reports from government hospitals and morgues. The Interior Ministry compiles its figures from police stations, while the Defense Ministry reports deaths only among army soldiers and insurgents killed in combat.

The United Nations keeps its own count, based largely on reports from the Baghdad morgue and the Health Ministry.

The major funder of the new study was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf <--------actual study is a 243kb, 8-page pdf file if you want to read it yourself.

I skimmed the study. Seems more like science than politics, with some good statistical methods employed.

I am sure that there will be those that say this number is far too high, based on other, non-scientific estimates, the authors actually got a good sample by interviewing about 12,000 people.

Even if the study is off by 50%, that still means that our bungling of the post-war occupation has cost 300,000+ Iraqis their lives.

[boutons_]

Who's ahead now in killing the largest number of Iraqis, dubya or Saddam?

Even with Saddam's total being boosted by 375,000 Iraqis killed when Saddam attacked Iran and 25,000 when Saddam invaded Kuwait, it looks like dubya is well ahead. Not very fair for Saddam that he's not an active player anymore.

"Staying the course" a few more years will certainly give dubya the World Champhionship of Murderer of Civilians.

What's great about dubya leaving office in 2009 is that he will still be able to notch up dead Iraqis while spending the rest of his life doing nothing constructive.

Saddam achieved as much in attacking Iran and Kuwait as dubya has achieved in invading Iraq: absolute fucking zero.

How about head-to-head in military incompetence?
Pretty much a close race. Well, actually, dubya is ahead in incompetence since Saddam did mount succesful coup and control the Iraqi government for nearly 25 years, while dubya was snorting coke, alcholhic, and going bankrupt. dubya has never really done anything on his own "abilities".

And the sheeple/rabble feel dubya's pain when touchy-feely-only-for-press-releases dubya "feels bad" about few slaughtered Amish school kids?

G M A F B

you're doing a heckuva job, dubya

[Hook Dem]

I'd say that one dead Boutons would even the scales! :lol

[RobinsontoDuncan]

count down to yonivore freedom is not free, democracy makes sacrafice ok, the world is a better place without sadaam even if iraq isnt...... 10, 9, 8, 7, 6....

[NASCARdad]

WTF!?!? Would you rather it be Americans!!?? Sorry, but I say better them than us.

[Extra Stout]

That number is a complete load of crap. Yes, a lot of Iraqis have died. And their deaths are probably in vain since the war in Iraq does little or nothing to make America more secure, and Iraq has zero chance of becoming a stable democracy anytime in the near-to-medium future. But 655,000? That's over 500 a day, every day, since the war began. It's a BS number meant to fool gullible minds three weeks before an election.

Chop down that number by a factor of ten and we're closer to reality.

[NASCARdad]

I don't care if the figure is a million. People die in WAR.

[xrayzebra]

Wonder why so many are dead in Iraq? Could it be their religious
leaders? Naw, Muslims are peace loving and don't believe in that
sort of thing. The Muslim leaders on have their militias because it
is the thing to do and in vogue now days.

[Spurminator]

:lol

And these are just the deaths we KNOW of! What about the many families who were completely wiped out with all witnesses? There would have to be countless deaths that cannot be accounted for in this interview-based study!

My guess is that the actual death toll is closer to 65 million.

[JoeChalupa]

That figure does seem high but there is no way an accurate count be done but either way the count is only going to get higher.

[RandomGuy]

That number is a complete load of crap. Yes, a lot of Iraqis have died. And their deaths are probably in vain since the war in Iraq does little or nothing to make America more secure, and Iraq has zero chance of becoming a stable democracy anytime in the near-to-medium future. But 655,000? That's over 500 a day, every day, since the war began. It's a BS number meant to fool gullible minds three weeks before an election.

Chop down that number by a factor of ten and we're closer to reality.

...and you got that 1/10th number to multiply this figure by exactly how?

[boutons_]

yes, it seems way too high, but 60K is way too low since Iraqis been dying a 3-4K/month since July. 40 - 50K year.

dubya, just keep staying that fucking course. We all love ya, big guy! :lol

[RandomGuy]

WTF!?!? Would you rather it be Americans!!?? Sorry, but I say better them than us.

"better them than us".

This is one of the single most morally repugnant things I have ever seen anybody say in any forum.

It is the same moral reasoning that led the guards at concentration camps to stuff corpses into ovens. "Better a stinking jew than us..."

You are a traitor to everything that this country stands for, if you don't like living up to high moral standards, go live in North Korea where you can join others of the same moral caliber.

Perhaps you can find a place on the firing squads.

[NASCARdad]

"better them than us".

This is one of the single most morally repugnant things I have ever seen anybody say in any forum.

It is the same moral reasoning that led the guards at concentration camps to stuff corpses into ovens. "Better a stinking jew than us..."

You are a traitor to everything that this country stands for, if you don't like living up to high moral standards, go live in North Korea where you can join others of the same moral caliber.

Perhaps you can find a place on the firing squads.

I can say the same to you. If you don't like what our president is doing for OUR country then GTF out!! Your only aiding the enemy with your dove talk. We are at WAR or haven't you figured that out yet.

[RandomGuy]

Moral repugnance aside, no one says that it *should* have been Americans anyways.

That is completely lying about what people who oppose the war believe.

There is a vast chasm between being appalled at the slaughter and wishing that slaughter on Americans, and you damn well know it.

[clambake]

Xray and Nascar provide the perfect example of how republicans think. It's just more discovery from the autopsy of their character.

[RandomGuy]

I can say the same to you. If you don't like what our president is doing for OUR country then GTF out!! Your only aiding the enemy with your dove talk. We are at WAR or haven't you figured that out yet.

You can say the same, but the President would be just as appalled at what you just said too.

I really can't stand idiots who mindlessly equate support for incompetant policies with patriotism.

If the president started ordering people off the tops of buildings, and I thought that was stupid, would that make me unpatriotic?

Nope.

[boutons_]

I think NASCARnutless is really mouse!

... having fun portraying the all the worst in the typical NASCAR mentality.

southern, rural, ignorant, racist, chauvinist, intolerant, narrow-minded, close-minded, stupefyingly stupid, mean, nasty, "religious", ie, red-dirt Repugs! :lol

[Spurminator]

NASCARdad is a troll. Pay no mind.

[RandomGuy]

NASCARdad is a troll. Pay no mind.

D'oh!! Thanks for pointing that out.
I forget to account for the occasional thing that is said as satire.

My apologies for going off on something silly.

[Spurminator]

Meh, I've gotten duped by more obvious ones myself...

[JoeChalupa]

From what I've read in here many, myself included, could be described as "trolls".
It's just a forum and I don't think the gov't will take any of our advice. :)

[RandomGuy]

Personally:

The actual figure is MUCH higher than what the administration would tell us. Even his supporters would admit that, I think.

The thing to remember for all is that if we were really there to help, then we should seriously weigh leaving to staying.

Those who argue against "cut and run" would use the same logic that would have us keep buying Enron stock.

At some point, you have to realize you made a mistake and that what you are doing is making things worse.

I think the recent Baker commission report is a good start at figuring out where to go from here.

[JoeChalupa]

I don't think we can leave Iraq in the state it is now. We simply cannot leave. Call it "cut and run" but I say we must finish the job. Right or wrong for going in in the first place, it would be wrong to leave now.

[Extra Stout]

...and you got that 1/10th number to multiply this figure by exactly how?
See boutons' post. 3000-4000 a month over 3.5 years would amount to 150,000 or so. But the insurgency has not been this intense all 3 1/2 years.

All you get is within an order of magnitude. Several hundred thousand is an order of magnitude too high.

50,000 to 100,000 is still a lot of dead Iraqis for no good reason. There is no need for BS embellishment.

[Extra Stout]

NASCARdad is a troll. Pay no mind.
With regard to that troll, in East Texas, reality exceeds the parody.

[George Gervin's Afro]

After hearing from the likes of Yoni/xrayzebra and their defense of the Iraq war : "we fight them there and not here", "this is the central front of the war on terror". It seems to me that the reasons and justifactions for this war have evolved into the above mentioned ideas. I wonder what the Iraqis must me be thinking now because all along we have been telling them we wanted to give them their freedom..yet we have put them right in the middle of our war on terror? we fight them in their country because we don't want to fight them in our country. Now put this into context of this story..no wonder the majority of them want to kill Americans... 8,7,6,5,4..until Yoni/xrayzebra call me a cut & runner.. wanting america to lose because I have the audacity to question the necessity of this war.

[RobinsontoDuncan]

WTF!?!? Would you rather it be Americans!!?? Sorry, but I say better them than us.


And how, pray tell, would it be us?

Im glad you responded the way you did though, at least now I can finally understand exactly how far the xenophobia and ignorance goes in the nascar community.

Every day I post here it seems like I read something that makes me sick to my stomach

[RobinsontoDuncan]

Wonder why so many are dead in Iraq? Could it be their religious
leaders? Naw, Muslims are peace loving and don't believe in that
sort of thing. The Muslim leaders on have their militias because it
is the thing to do and in vogue now days.


Did anyone else notice that Xray seems to mistake cause and effect quite a bit?

Let's see:
Cause: US invades Iraq, topples a secular (yes a bad one) dictator in a country with long standing ethnic mistrust and animosity.

Effect: Sectarain war.

[RandomGuy]

See boutons' post. 3000-4000 a month over 3.5 years would amount to 150,000 or so. But the insurgency has not been this intense all 3 1/2 years.

All you get is within an order of magnitude. Several hundred thousand is an order of magnitude too high.

50,000 to 100,000 is still a lot of dead Iraqis for no good reason. There is no need for BS embellishment.

Have you read the study?

It didn't seem like it was embellished. They did admit to a lot of possible factors both upwards and downwards, that could have affected the results.

I think they got fairly close to the truth.

The problem with the current estimates are that they rely almost solely on media reports that don't include a lot of the other violence like criminal gangs and so forth. These are hardly scientific methods.

You are correct that the deaths have been increasing in number and the rates in the report reflect that.

Think about what is happening. We see the big bombings and troop deaths, to be sure.

But think about what goes on outside of what is reported there:

Small scale attacks and gunbattles in crowded areas. One or two americans killed in a firefight means that both the insurgents and coalition forces were firing in both directions.

Hit squads don't make the news in the ones and twos that some operate in.

Murderous robberies by the massive numbers of unemployed don't make the news either.

Add it all up and the figure starts geting more believable.

One has to remember that Iraqis are dying on BOTH sides of this civil war. In a gunbattle between insurgents and the Iraqi military/police, it is mostly Iraqis doing the dying. Factor in tribal killings, criminal killings, religious killings, revenge killings, and you have a lot more going on that meets the eye just by reading US media accounts.

[Extra Stout]

Have you read the study?
I do not need to read the study. This group and that have been releasing easily-debunked reports with grossly exaggerated body counts since 2003. Congratulations on getting sucked in yourself.

There are about 26 million people in Iraq. 655,000 dead represents almost 3% of the population.

If Iraq had been in a state of all-out civil war, with many of its cities reduced to rubble, for the last 3 1/2 years, that degree of civilian deaths might be believable, on the high end. France, Germany, Japan, and China did not lose so high a percentage of civilians in the Second World War, which depending upon the combatants, lasted six to ten years.

Leaning upon specious data as a bulwark for a moral argument that does not need such specious data is rhetorically perilous. If one were attempting to spin the Iraq war in favor of the President, one might float such a ridiculous number out there in hopes that gullible opponents would latch onto it and eviscerate their own credibility.

[George Gervin's Afro]

There are about 26 million people in Iraq. 655,000 dead represents almost 3% of the population.

If Iraq had been in a state of all-out civil war, with many of its cities reduced to rubble, for the last 3 1/2 years, that degree of civilian deaths might be believable, on the high end. France, Germany, Japan, and China did not lose so high a percentage of civilians in the Second World War, which depending upon the combatants, lasted six to ten years.

Leaning upon specious data as a bulwark for a moral argument that does not need such specious data is rhetorically perilous. If one were attempting to spin the Iraq war in favor of the President, one might float such a ridiculous number out there in hopes that gullible opponents would latch onto it and eviscerate their own credibility.

Karl Rove is giggling. :spin



97% of the Iraqi population has survived the Iraq war!!!

Karl Rove

[Extra Stout]

97% of the Iraqi population has survived the Iraq war!!!
No, 99% of the population has survived the Iraq war! See, you just can't trust those liberals -- they make the situation in Iraq look worse than it is!

Karl Rove

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

Silly little liberals.

By latching onto a indefensibly high number, you make it possible for neocons to spin 100,000-150,000 civilian deaths as relatively low.

[clambake]

How many deaths are acceptable in a war you were tricked into fighting? When your children and money were stolen to do it?

[RandomGuy]

I do not need to read the study. This group and that have been releasing easily-debunked reports with grossly exaggerated body counts since 2003. Congratulations on getting sucked in yourself.

There are about 26 million people in Iraq. 655,000 dead represents almost 3% of the population.

If Iraq had been in a state of all-out civil war, with many of its cities reduced to rubble, for the last 3 1/2 years, that degree of civilian deaths might be believable, on the high end. France, Germany, Japan, and China did not lose so high a percentage of civilians in the Second World War, which depending upon the combatants, lasted six to ten years.

Leaning upon specious data as a bulwark for a moral argument that does not need such specious data is rhetorically perilous. If one were attempting to spin the Iraq war in favor of the President, one might float such a ridiculous number out there in hopes that gullible opponents would latch onto it and eviscerate their own credibility.


Ouch. I never said that I fully believed their numbers. Let me correct that bit now: I think it is a bit beyond common sense.

I DO think that the number is MUCH higher than this administration would be willing to admit to.

I merely wanted to point out that I think the numbers are a lot higher than most believe if they only read western media accounts.

Spectacular bombings and attacks make headlines, but when Marwan the cab driver gets machine gunned for his fare money, or Jabila gets hit by a stray bullet from fighting in her bedroom, those deaths do not.

Read the study. There are a number of factors that might comprimise the results, but I think this is closer to the actual number than some would like to admit. Dismiss it only after reading it.

Another thing to remember is that this is over 3 full years of increasingly intense fighting and violence, and the data tables in the report reflect that.

[Condemned 2 HelLA]

How many deaths are acceptable in a war you were tricked into fighting? When your children and money were stolen to do it?

Game, set and match.
:tu

[RandomGuy]

How many deaths are acceptable in a war you were tricked into fighting? When your children and money were stolen to do it?

Good questions that need to be asked.

[RandomGuy]

They surveyed a population of about 12,000 people.

650 or so deaths were recored.

Surveyors asked to see death certificates in 545 of these and got death certificates in 501 cases. Patterns of death were no different in those without certificates than those with.

These people didn't know they were going to be sampled, but somehow the majority of them had death certificates to back up their claims of a death in the houshold?

[RandomGuy]

As I said before there are a lot of potentially confounding factors, many of which were addressed in the study.

I think the main one was simply that the study over-represented people who lived in high mortality areas but who subsequently moved to lower mortality areas (people moved to places that were safer).

This would cause the number to be higher, and also dovetails with some interviews that I have seen/heard with Iraqis themselves.

I think the actual number is somewhere between 200-300K, were I to guess. This would be the number of Iraqis that would have not died had we not invaded and failed so spectacularly at what we attempted to do.

[NASCARdad]

So just because I'm not PC correct I'm a troll? I'm straight forward about how I feel. Label me a redneck I don't care. I'm sick of those who won't say what they feel because they may offend somebody.
Guess what? People will be offended even if you try to be politically correct so why not just say how you really feel and cut to the chase?
I may hate Boutons and NBADan but they don't hide the fact that they are left-wing, liberal nut jobs.

[Oh, Gee!!]

well at least we found the WMDs. Ooops, those are in N Korea

[Extra Stout]

So just because I'm not PC correct I'm a troll? I'm straight forward about how I feel. Label me a redneck I don't care. I'm sick of those who won't say what they feel because they may offend somebody.
Guess what? People will be offended even if you try to be politically correct so why not just say how you really feel and cut to the chase?
I may hate Boutons and NBADan but they don't hide the fact that they are left-wing, liberal nut jobs.
You're right. I tried to conjur a redneck troll once, but you just can't summon the full microcephalic coprophagic simian idiocy of the real thing unless you are one.

[clambake]

Can't stop laughing!!!!!!!!^^^^^^

[RobinsontoDuncan]

wow..... that war rather funny.

(translation for Nascardad, he in essence equated being a redneck to following a small brained shit eating ape like ideology)

assuming im right about coprphagic, it's been a while since i've heard it

[Drachen]

I do not need to read the study. This group and that have been releasing easily-debunked reports with grossly exaggerated body counts since 2003. Congratulations on getting sucked in yourself.

There are about 26 million people in Iraq. 655,000 dead represents almost 3% of the population.

If Iraq had been in a state of all-out civil war, with many of its cities reduced to rubble, for the last 3 1/2 years, that degree of civilian deaths might be believable, on the high end. France, Germany, Japan, and China did not lose so high a percentage of civilians in the Second World War, which depending upon the combatants, lasted six to ten years.

Leaning upon specious data as a bulwark for a moral argument that does not need such specious data is rhetorically perilous. If one were attempting to spin the Iraq war in favor of the President, one might float such a ridiculous number out there in hopes that gullible opponents would latch onto it and eviscerate their own credibility.

why does a percentage matter? Its a war in a relatively small country. Russia lost around 20 million people in WWII so even if they were in the war for the full 10 years (which they were not) that would be 2 million a year. As opposed to the 187000 per year here.

[RandomGuy]

So just because I'm not PC correct I'm a troll? I'm straight forward about how I feel. Label me a redneck I don't care. I'm sick of those who won't say what they feel because they may offend somebody.
Guess what? People will be offended even if you try to be politically correct so why not just say how you really feel and cut to the chase?
I may hate Boutons and NBADan but they don't hide the fact that they are left-wing, liberal nut jobs.

Not so much a troll as a characature.

If you are real, everything I said stands, traitor.

If you are satire, then you are a good one, if a little sad that people actually are ignorant/morally bankrupt enough to say something like that.

[RobinsontoDuncan]

why does a percentage matter? Its a war in a relatively small country. Russia lost around 20 million people in WWII so even if they were in the war for the full 10 years (which they were not) that would be 2 million a year. As opposed to the 187000 per year here.


You are misunderstanding his position. Everyone here agrees that 3% of a population is an astronomical figure, extrastout is saying that this number is too large to be true, and spouting off this type of number allows republicans to spin the anti-war types as alarmists and out of touch with reality

[Drachen]

I can understand if you are argueing that the NUMBER is too high, but to me it doesnt make sense to base your arguement on a percentage. If you took the amount of people killed in Japan in the nuclear attacks and extrapolated them over a year, Im sure that would yield a high percentage too. Im just saying argue the number, not the percentage.

[Ocotillo]

655,000 or 65,000. Either way that is way too many dead people.

From what I heard on the radio, the methodology used probably was not the best. Nonetheless, a lot of Iraqis have died because of our invasion.

[PixelPusher]

Not so much a troll as a characature.

If you are real, everything I said stands, traitor.

If you are satire, then you are a good one, if a little sad that people actually are ignorant/morally bankrupt enough to say something like that.

the moniker "Nascar Dad" seemed a little too obvious to me, but who knows. "SecurityMom" is sure to follow...

[PixelPusher]

655,000 or 65,000. Either way that is way too many dead people.

From what I heard on the radio, the methodology used probably was not the best. Nonetheless, a lot of Iraqis have died because of our invasion.

I wonder if the disconnect might have something to do with the fact that not all casualties are caused bombs and bullets; what about drastically diminished health and hygiene?

[01Snake]

what about drastically diminished health and hygiene?


:lol

[RandomGuy]

I wonder if the disconnect might have something to do with the fact that not all casualties are caused bombs and bullets; what about drastically diminished health and hygiene?


That is actually addressed in the study as well. The decreasing lack of access to health care is really becoming a problem.

[PixelPusher]

:lol

I take it you've seen the "World of Warcraft" episode of Southpark? ;)

[Guru of Nothing]

"better them than us".

This is one of the single most morally repugnant things I have ever seen anybody say in any forum.

It is the same moral reasoning that led the guards at concentration camps to stuff corpses into ovens. "Better a stinking jew than us..."

You are a traitor to everything that this country stands for, if you don't like living up to high moral standards, go live in North Korea where you can join others of the same moral caliber.

Perhaps you can find a place on the firing squads.

If there is a problem with the "moral caliber" of the citizenry of North Korea, I'd blame it on hunger; not some inherent ethnic flaw.

[Nbadan]

John Hopkins researcher stands by calculation methods...


The US president in the past has estimated the number of Iraqi deaths to be closer to 30,000, and reaffirmed that number Wednesday.

"I stand by the figure," he said. "Six hundred thousand or whatever they guessed at ... it's not credible."

<snip>

But the author of the study, Gilbert Burnham of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, defended his findings as reliable and based on methods commonly used by researchers in the health field.

"We use a cluster survey sampling methodology and this is something that is widely used in international health," said Burnham, co-director of the center for refugees and disaster response at Johns Hopkins.

The survey method is used to confirm government figures for health indicators and "it's increasingly used to look at mortality rate in conflict," Burnham said.

Yahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061012/wl_afp/usiraqtollreportbush_061012082233)

U.S. General Tommy Franks estimated soon after the invasion that there had been 30,000 Iraqi troops killed as of April 9, 2003. (http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20040419-secdef1362.html) Three years later and nobody has died according to the WH