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547 BECOMES 654,965
The actual number of Iraqi deaths recorded in Lancet’s latest study is just 547. Extrapolating from that figure, the study’s authors estimate:
... that as of July, 2006, there have been 654,965 excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war.
Let’s put Lancet’s number in perspective:
* It is larger than the total number of Americans killed during combat in every major conflict, from the Revolutionary War to the first Gulf War.
* It is more than double the combined number of civilians killed in the bombings of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.
* It is a larger number than were killed in Germany during five years (and 955,044 tons) of WWII bombing.
Remember: Lancet came up with this via a survey that identified precisely 547 deaths (as reported by the New York Times). Interestingly, that information doesn’t appear here, or here, or here ...
(An earlier post: click)
UPDATE. Omar Fadil, one of perhaps only two or three surviving Iraqis, reports from Baghdad:
This fake research is an insult to every man, woman and child who lost their lives. Behind every drop of blood is a noble story of sacrifice for a just cause that is struggling for living safe in freedom and prosperity.
UPDATE II. Here’s an idea. The Lancet people claim 90% of the deaths in their sample are supported by death certificates. If so, why not simply seek out the suppliers, printers, and officials responsible for death certificates throughout Iraq? Surely there’s no need for any clustertronic surveys and dangerous door-to-door footwork if such comprehensive records exist.
Hmmm.
America averages about 35,000 deaths from motor vehicle accidents every year. Using the Lancet method I’ve determined that, by extrapolation, approximately 44 billion Americans die each year from motor vehicle accidents!
Someone call Al-Reuters!
Posted by memomachine on 2006 10 11 at 05:00 PM • permalinkYou have to take account of the sampling error in the original collection of deaths, then you have to think of a suitable correction factor, say 1000, and then you add on a few more to be on the safe side, and BINGO!
As for the other comparisons - Dresden, Nagasaki, Heroshima, you need to apply the correction foctor to them as well to get a more realistic picture.
Wow, that Iraq sure was safe before the war. A veritable utopia where people died of old age in their twilight.
According to the lancet study linked, there were no (zip, nada, none, 0) deaths due to violent causes in the 12000 people sampled before the war started.
Strangely enough, death due to old age has more than doubled (from 8 to 19 in the sample size), and heart disease has taken complete hold (up from 20 to 102) of the population.
FMD, imagine working for the Lancet - “mate your base rate of pay is $25 an hour, so with tax and super that comes out to about $168,000 a day”
Posted by Harry Buttle on 2006 10 11 at 05:26 PM • permalinkMy brain hurts. I can’t follow the complete lack of logic to get over 600000 estimated deaths from 547 actual deaths.
What am I missing here, and why don’t we have the warpron all over the 7.30 Report to give us the details?
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 10 11 at 05:27 PM • permalinkYes, and in spite of all that it will be cited by Pilger, Fisk, Sheehan, and other moonbats as proof positive of George Bush’s crimes against humanity.
Posted by wronwright on 2006 10 11 at 05:31 PM • permalinkThis rubbish really pisses me off. The editor is trashing the reputation of The Lancet by publishing this propaganda. Reputations like that don’t get built overnight, they take decades, but they can be ruined overnight.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 10 11 at 05:31 PM • permalink#9 They’ve used sampling. It’s the same method they determine to find out who will win an election. You survey a couple of thousand people and then extrapolate. These methods have got to be done carefully, because there are a lot of pitfalls, and if you don’t know what you’re doing you can end up with nonsense.
...Obviously.Posted by daddy dave on 2006 10 11 at 05:34 PM • permalinkJim Treacher: rounding error combined with wishful thinking?
Posted by Patrick Chester on 2006 10 11 at 06:17 PM • permalinkWell, looky here. I just went and did a poll my own self.
I asked a “relative sample” the question:
Yes or no. The authors and everyone involved in generating this “Lancet Study” are traitors and deserving of arrest, conviction and execution.
Out of 8 people asked, 7 said yes, 1 said no. Therefore, the poll proves it. The majority of Americans believe these folk to be guilty and deserving of the fullest possible punishment.
#6 It’s just that they’re all on the Gitmo Diet, duncan. (Or are gaining just as much weight on the Sheehan Fast.)
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 10 11 at 06:19 PM • permalinkStrangely enough, if that sample was actually collected and not just manufactured out of the air, and the respondents were at least somewhat accurate in their reporting of family deaths both before and after the US and Coalition invasion, then that data sheet is a veritable gold mine of intelligence.
No deaths prior, lots of deaths after. Those would all have to be pretty high up the Baath loyalty chain and all involved with the murder/death cults that the MSM so lovingly and wrongly describes as insurgents.If just before the 2004 Presidential election “Lancet” estimated 100,000 Iraqi casualties, and just before the 2006 mid-term elections “Lancet” estimated 655,000 Iraqi casualties, extrapolating form that I’m guessing that before the 2008 Presidential election they will come up with another study claiming that 4,290,250 Iraqis had died. A few more election cycles and there won’t be anyone left alive in Iraq. Or anyone with any credibility at “Lancet”.
Junk Statistics in the service of Lefty Loonies and the MSM. Same kind of fallacious extrapolation used in “proving” the El Al Gore global warming catastrophes, proving (by the Club of Rome in 1970) that the world would run out of oil by 1990, used in demonstrating absolutely that Roosevelt would lose the 1932 election, that Harry Truman would lose the 1948 election, and on and on.
The only saving grace about such an outrageous number—as P.J. O’Rourke once explained—is that most people are innumerate. He claimed you could put a few zeros onto the end of the death tally from a third world flood or train wreck and most people wouldn’t notice.
Now, Iraq is, of course, much higher profile. But this is unlikely to change many minds—and at that, only amongst those who make or stumble across the sort of comparisons Tim has dug up.
The new number was getting an airing on Radio National this morning, leading into an interview with a Vanity Fair journalist whose line is that ‘Baghdad is in flames’ (no link yet). He was arguing that the American action in Iraq has not merely allowed simmering endemic sectarian feuds to re-emerge, by getting rid of Saddam, but is actually causing those feuds. To his credit, fill-in host Norman Swan politely asked him for an example to demonstrate this remarkable causal relationship. His guest nearly exploded: “Wh-why, there are so many examples, I wouldn’t know where to start!!” Of course, we didn’t get one.
Does bongoman think he’s making a point? Because all he’s doing is reinforcing his idiocy.
The number is fake. It’s made up. It’s as fictional as Starman Jones. Trying to make point with it makes you no different than the loons who claim to have created perpetual motion machines.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 10 11 at 07:11 PM • permalinkActually it is worse than 547. The survey describes excess deaths. The pre-invasion period had 82 deaths over 15 months or 5.47 a month. The post-invaision period had 547 deaths over 40 months or 13.68 a month. The difference between pre-invasion and post-invasion deaths for the 40 month period is 328.
As a matter of interest I believe the previous survey of 100,000 deaths was based on an excess deaths of 32.
Liberal organizations aren’t very adept at statistics, it seems. Once at Volokh Conspiracy, a commenter explained how we had arrived at the “homosexuals represent 10% of the population” piece of conventional wisdom. It seems, or so he said, that in the 80’s a gay rights advocacy group determined (methodology unknown) that five percent of males are gay. From that they extrapolated that five percent of females are gay. Voilà—10%. I guess we should be grateful they didn’t determine that 50% of males are gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 10 11 at 07:32 PM • permalinkOT
What in THE HELL, is the American government doing?
Update: As of now, Little Green Footballs is also being blocked, but DailyKos is not… Can we try to get the word out? Blocking conservative blogs and not liberal ones is BS.
Blocked Blogs:
Captain’s Quarters
Cox and Forkum
Gates of Vienna
Little Green Footballs
Michael J. Totten
Michelle Malkin
Power Line
Protein Wisdom
Rantings of a Sandmonkey
Roger L. Simon
The Adventures of Chester
The American Thinker
The Belmont Club
The Doctor is In
WizbangBlogs not blocked:
DailyKos
Democrat Underground
America blog
Atrios.blogspot.com
JuanCole.com
The Huffington Post
Talkingpointsmemo.comMe thinks freedom dwindles by the day, except for those that think, freedom is their way only.
doesn’t matter anyway. it was all over the london newspapers this arvo: 655,000 have died as a result of the invasion. the damage is done. nobody will apologise
this conclusively demonstrates which side of the political fence has control of the media, when outright lies can be peddled as truth.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 10 11 at 07:44 PM • permalink#33 yeah i liked the cat’s teeth sampling and will use it too.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 10 11 at 08:19 PM • permalink“Based on my survey of Beverly Hills in 1970, which counted deaths in one house and extrapolated, I estimate that the Manson Family murdered 81,614 celebrities that night. “
Thats not extrapolation, thats wishful thinking…
Posted by Harry Buttle on 2006 10 11 at 08:22 PM • permalinkThey interviewed households (defined as a unit that ate together) adjacent to each other. By what means did the authors ensure that people who moved from household to household (as insurgents might) and died during the period under review were not counted multiple times? I.e., how did they ensure that four deaths reported in households 1, 4, 8 and 11 (all in the same street) was not in fact a report about the death of just one person who moved between the households? Even if this happened only a few times, with such a small sample size the impact on extrapolated numbers would be be very large indeed.
* It is larger than the total number of Americans killed during combat in every major conflict, from the Revolutionary War to the first Gulf War.
* It is more than double the combined number of civilians killed in the bombings of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.
* It is a larger number than were killed in Germany during five years (and 955,044 tons) of WWII bombing.
Slackers.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 10 11 at 08:23 PM • permalinkDon’t the coalition pay compensation for collateral damage? Seems like an incentive for the survey respondents to lie.
Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2006 10 11 at 08:28 PM • permalinkThe LancedBoil declares 655,000 dead in Iraq. Just about the same time, Texas Bob reappears among the posts - well gee Bob, you might have left a few for our boys!
Good to hear from you again, soldier.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 10 11 at 08:39 PM • permalink@El Cid - they could be blocking sites getting a lot of traffic from your workplace. Which begs the question… are you working or surfing ;)
Install Firefox and Tor and surf to your hearts
Wow, that Iraq sure was safe before the war. A veritable utopia where people died of old age in their twilight.
Of course it was. Just listen to that voice of truth and reason, Sean Penn:
“Last year I went to Iraq. Before Team America showed up, it was a happy place. They had flowery meadows and rainbow skies, and rivers made of chocolate, where the children danced and laughed and played with gumdrop smiles.”
Posted by Apparatchik on 2006 10 11 at 08:42 PM • permalinkSome bleating from the chorus here.
A sample:
Saddam was the best thing for Iraq.
Posted by Patrick Henry on 2006 10 11 at 08:45 PM • permalinkThe bias of the authors of the Lancet report is obvious from the phrasing of the conclusion:
“that as of July, 2006, there have been 654,965 excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war”
A conclusion derived from statistical inference should be phrased:
“that as of July, 2006, there is some statistical evidence that indicates perhaps 654,965 excess Iraqi deaths have occurred as a consequence of the war”
This is to reflect the issues that surround the process of producing an estimator of a population parameter via statistical inference techniques.bongoman raised to the nth power remains zero.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 10 11 at 08:52 PM • permalinkWe must remember that before the illegal American invasion and occupation of Iraq, the only deaths were caused by; Children’s kites getting caught in powerlines (in the days when the electricity used to function), and the elderly would pass away peacefully while tending to the flower gardens that lined every street.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 10 11 at 09:09 PM • permalinkAs you say, El, it’s good to see the man.
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 10 11 at 09:21 PM • permalinkHow can I get the Lancet to evaluate MY paycheck?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 10 11 at 09:34 PM • permalinkWilt Chamberlain and The Lancet use a similar accounting method.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 10 11 at 09:40 PM • permalinkA conclusion derived from statistical inference should be phrased:
“that as of July, 2006, there is some statistical evidence that indicates perhaps 654,965 excess Iraqi deaths have occurred as a consequence of the war”Or better yet, “perhaps 600,000-700,000…” Thus avoiding the embarrassment of seeming to believe that your methodology can really deliver six significant digits’ worth of precision.
Posted by Paul Zrimsek on 2006 10 11 at 09:40 PM • permalinkThe Lancet survey is an utterly meaningless piece of statistical irrelevance. The potential for bias in the study is staggering. Forget double blinding, this ain’t even single blinded. The bias could easily be present in both the data collectors and the householders interviewed.
Official death rate is the only realistic means of measurement here. It may underestimate a little but would serve as a good ballpark. Of course, the figures aren’t nearly so dramatic.
I just love the gall of it: after their first ‘estimate’ was roundly criticized, both for its timing and methodology, what do they do? They give it back to us, in spades!
The Lancet gave up the pretense of being a scientific journal some time ago.
And of those 654,965 (just theorising here)how many were killed by insane Islamic deathbots intent on destroying any semblance of order rather than go quietly about their new and potentially much better lives under a new regime?
Leaving aside Lancet trashing its reputation with these ridiculous surveys and extrapolations, one does draw a lesson or two from what has happened in Iraq. Don’t bother cleaning up the mess. The Middle East is so dysfunctional it perhaps cannot be healed, only contained.
Iraq still has a chance to show that it can emerge from this period of change with something governable. There have been some signs of progress reported (no, not in the msm!)in the shape of tribal leaders going against Al Qaeda, and the Sadr militias being slowly ground down. Iraq has to heal from within now if at all. If it does not, a large part of the blame will still fall on those elements within and without that see no benefit in improving the lot of the people as a whole.
The role of the USA has been a noble one despite what critics say. We are all great managers in hindsight. With some different moves maybe WW2 could have finished a year earlier too. The trick is to finish it, not leave it like Korea, or Iraq now.Here’s one from the SMH, astonishing in its idiocy*:-
“The reasons that I’m all for “staying the cause” is that the US is a very powerful country and it takes a long time to weaken financially, militarily and morally.
With putrefying wounds like Iraq helping, its strength and prestige will decline over time and eventually be a superpower no more.”
*Considering the competition, it takes a real fruitcup to trounce their microcephalic fellow frothers. The peanut directly below this one quoted Michael Fucking Franti fer fucksakes.
Sums up the rabid leftist mindset though- who gives a fuck about civilian and military casualties, as long as it results in US hegomony being derailed- after all, they’re only ragheads, wops, puh white trash and ghetto niggahs doing the dying.
Well if that’s how many have died since Saddam according to Lancet, then under Saddam the number must have been approximately 1000000000, going by their calculations.
Posted by The Best Infidel on 2006 10 11 at 10:06 PM • permalinkOr perhaps just 100. Depends whether you divide or multiply.
Posted by The Best Infidel on 2006 10 11 at 10:06 PM • permalinkMarine son in law reported that every “insurgent” they offed had to be accompanied by what amounted to a full CSI type investigation. Pictures, documentation of circumstances, etc. Also TACAIR getting extremely good at dropping ordnance in some hadji bad guy’s lap while the party in the rest of the room continues unabated. Just based on those two things I know to be true (I have been involved with TACAIR training for some years), I’d say that 600K+ number errs well on the side of unadulterated bullshit concocted by people with an agenda.
I wonder where Lancet was when Pol Pot was going nuts? Probably fawning about the Khmer Rouge’s 100% literacy rate.
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 10 11 at 10:23 PM • permalinkO/T - check out the Burqua Barbies! This speaks volumes about the Muslim mind - a schizoid love/hate relationship that has resulted in mass insanity.
Muslim-Themed Products Mimic Icons in American Popular Culture - Fox News
Posted by walterplinge on 2006 10 11 at 10:25 PM • permalinkSome talking head on the BBC News repeated the Lancet figure, and actually kept a straight face as he did so.
Rapidly attaining “Gospel Truth” status.I threw my foam rubber brick at the TV screen.
(I seem to do a lot of brick throwing when watching the BBC News)
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2006 10 11 at 10:32 PM • permalinkLiberal organizations aren’t very adept at statistics, it seems. Once at Volokh Conspiracy, a commenter explained how we had arrived at the “homosexuals represent 10% of the population” piece of conventional wisdom.
For anyone who wants a refresher on how the Left come up with their stats, I can thoroughly recommend Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist.
As an illustration, he examined some hysterical claims made about massive erosion and loss of topsoil in Africa and found that the original study the moonbats relied on was based on one farm in Belgium. If that wasn’t bad enough, the farm was built on the side of a hill and had suffered one of the wettest winters on record. The author noted that both of these factors meant that the results were not typical and should not be extrapolated to any other situations.
The deceit of the left knows no bounds..
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2006 10 11 at 10:45 PM • permalinkIts gotta be the quest for power Cid, cuz nothing else they say or do makes any sense. I don’t agree with Joltin’ Joe on much, but I think we both agree there’s something here worth defending.
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 10 11 at 11:13 PM • permalinkLucky Lancet, it seems to have co-opted Henry Reynolds and Catherine[?] Pybus to do their new death study.
These two did a grand job on all those Aboriginal massacres that somehow weren’t recorded anywhere.
Anecdotal research is soooo much more accurate that only the very biased wouldn’t accept it instantly...By the way, if Lancet said it was ‘only’ 100,000 less than 2 years ago, that means over 250,000 a year since - 7,000 every day?
Iraq Body Count just became redundant. What’s the point of keeping track when you can just make the figures up? The official tally on IBC is a maximum of 48,693.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 10 11 at 11:25 PM • permalinkTim Blair! Listen up you rancid, discarded, Koala placenta! No longer will we tolerate you treading upon the peace and stability of the DPRI* with your crocodile skin golf shoes! Yield to the demands of He-Who-is-Above-Us-All-in-His-Glory, or pay the consequences! You have been warned!
*Democratic People’s Republic of IowaTScc have lost comms with all the SWQ coboxes at the same time. Suspect problem
lies with the Master Cobox at Dry Creek. Please investigate Urgently.
Spare coboxes exist at Dry Creek if needed.
Please advise outcomes asap.
Thank YouPosted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 12 at 12:01 AM • permalinkOw! CTRL-see what an idiot I am…sorry please ignore above paste.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 12 at 12:03 AM • permalinkOh my god - these guys are doctors writing for a medical journal - maybe I will take up herbal medicine after all
Posted by Latte Libertarian on 2006 10 12 at 12:24 AM • permalink#71 Hellbilly
Wonderful stuff! Saw this on LGF earlier
*Democratic People’s Republic of Iowa
Now tell me do you have taxes and all that stuff there? To pay for the glowsticks and crackers?
If not how can an oppressed Aussie migrate there? Or will I have to be illegal to get in?
I’ve fallen in love with the bloke with the mullet
Posted by aussiemagpie on 2006 10 12 at 12:26 AM • permalinkAs for the Lancet
As a nurse working in a busy General Practice, I read all the medical journals here and I expect stuff about measles, arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, etc plus ordinary stuff like accreditation, working conditions in hospitals and GPs surgeries - not such blatant political sh*t
None of our docs subscribe to the Lancet BTW
Posted by aussiemagpie on 2006 10 12 at 12:31 AM • permalinkShucks, Cid. Give “Stupid” a handful of oats from me.
(man if that ctrl-c/v boo-boo had been more commercial-in-confidence I’d of been well and truly fornicated, as it is I’m so flustered I lost what I meant to paste anyway, gonna quit while I’m a dumkopf)
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 12 at 12:31 AM • permalinkGrimmy, yer gonna get me fired—but wadda ya reckon the “Q” stands for? “Adelaide”?
Naw, mate, the master’s in Adelaide, the problem’s in QLD. Not my call, but probably a port on a Xyplex down south needs a reset.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 12 at 12:35 AM • permalink“Your Mumma’s so old, she remembers when The Lancet was a respected medical journal”.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 10 12 at 12:39 AM • permalinkBTW- what’s wrong with the descritpor “shitloads”?
It’s about as accurate as the Lancet.
No, it’s lots more accurate, but far less precise.
Again, what of “survivor bias”? I heard it mentioned by some Lancet guy, perhaps in a BBC report, as a factor which may have led to underreporting (i.e. 654,965 is low). Of course, if Saddam’s goons killed whole families more often than the post-invasion death-dealers, then 654,965 is too high.
Posted by jabberwocky on 2006 10 12 at 01:04 AM • permalink... and now Question 10 in the Bonmot Current Affairs Exam.
Time allowed: 10 mins
Marks: 20% of total
Hypothesis:
From Greg Sheridan’s column in The Australian: “Just beyond the border on the northern side is a low range of deceptively gentle looking hills. Dug deep into those hills are thousands of artillery pieces that could pulverise Seoul and kill perhaps millions of South Koreans in a day.” In this eventuality:-Question: a) Will the US respond with ‘extreme prejudice’ and bomb the shit out of NK?
b) Will Kofi Anus declare he is “deeply concerned”?
c) Will the UN do anything at all or will it go and hide in the corner?d) Will Australia finally turn off the aid tap and stop funding the prick?
Take your time….
The BBC’s buying it
It is vigorously disputed by supporters of the war in Iraq, including US President George W Bush.
BBC-speak for “only right-wing death merchants could possibly dispute this number”
Posted by pommygranate on 2006 10 12 at 01:32 AM • permalinkI’m just reading through the study, and while the methodology seems sounds to my layman eyes (though I’d really like to know the exact locations of the clusters they sampled, not merely the province that each was in), nobody seems to have bothered to proof-read the Results section much, which doesn’t reflect too well on the results presented. Here’s the third paragraph (the second one that actually presents results) from that section:
Of the 629 deaths reported 547 (87%) were in the post-invasion period (March, 2003, to June, 2006) compared with 82 (13%) in the pre-invasion period (January, 2002, to March, 2003; table 2). Most deaths (n=485; 77%) were in males, and this was true for both periods, but more pronounced in the pre-invasion period* (57 of 82 deaths pre-invasion vs 428 of 547 deaths post-invasion). The male-to-female ratio of post-invasion** deaths was 3.4 for all deaths, and 9.8 for violent deaths (all deaths: 144 female, 485 male; violent death: 28 female, 274 male).
* Actually, it’s more pronounced for the post-invasion period (78% to 70%).
** The numbers they’re listing are actually for the entire study period, not for the post-invasion period.And that’s just the second paragraph, I wonder how many more errors there are lurking in the rest of the piece.
Taking the numbers at face value, there’s actually some interesting stuff in there, but it doesn’t really support the contention that these are mostly civilian “excess” deaths. Post-invasion, those sampled reported (among those aged 15 to 59) 37 non-violent male deaths and 39 non-violent female deaths in the post-invasion period. Those numbers are pretty much what one would expect, roughly even for both genders. On the other hand, there were 235 violent male deaths and only 15 violent female deaths. That’s just astoundingly skewed (15.7 times as many males than females).
Now, the terrorists (excuse me, “insurgents”) aren’t particularly known for their discrimination in who they target, and surely we would have heard about it if the US military had killed 500,000 male civilians (because that’s what the number would extrapolate to), so there are just two main groups I can think of who would account for all those male deaths: Iraqi military/police, and insurgents. I highly doubt the Iraqi security organizations have lost even 100,000 men in the last 3 1/2 years, so you really have to wonder just who comprises all these male deaths.
Oh, and check this garbage by which they try to explain the extremely large number of non-elderly male deaths in the study:
Across Iraq, deaths and injuries from violent causes were concentrated in adolescent to middle age men. Although some were probably combatants, a number of factors would expose this group to more risk—e.g., life style, automobile travel, and employment outside the home. The circumstances of a number of deaths from gunshots suggest assassinations or executions. Coalition forces have been reported as targeting all men of military age.
For violent deaths only, it’s 601,027
Does Lancet claim that 53,938 more people have died of natural causes than would have under the conditions before the war? (For comparison: this figure is greater than the Iraq Body Count.)
Posted by jabberwocky on 2006 10 12 at 04:14 AM • permalink#95 When you compare the minimum of both estimated deaths and violent deaths. It is possible that there were more violent deaths from the war than actual deaths from the war. This means that it is possible that there were fictitious violent deaths. But of course, these fictitious deaths were caused by the coalition.
#101: The Metro is everwhere - they even have a Chinese version in Hong Kong. As you can see, no mention of the Lancet study on front page.
I think the wankers need to buy a new calculator - the hot desert sun has obviously fucked the one they’ve got, or the battery is going flat and adding a thousand zeros to any number they punch in. Maybe they should go back to basics and get themseves an abacus - it may improve their maths somewhat.
Is it possible that the blood supply to his brain has pooled so in his lower extremities that the “complete and utter twat” calling itself kilo cannot even recognize the obvious Socratic irony in #103?
What can one say? Irredeemable? Yes, that’s the word.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 12 at 05:17 AM • permalinkOf course, kilo has failed to grasp the distinction between a war crime (deliberate targeting of an ambulance) and bombing an ammo dump (neighborhood). Way to go douchetool. You’ve sunk to the level of bongoman.
Posted by The Apologist on 2006 10 12 at 06:16 AM • permalinkDoes Lancet claim that 53,938 more people have died of natural causes than would have under the conditions before the war?
As far as I can tell, yes. I don’t think that number, taken at face value, would be all that outlandish…it just represents a ~10% increase over the previously cited mortality figures (5.3 per 1000 per annum, or thereabouts which in all likelihood didn’t include people who simply “disappeared” under Saddam’s rule).
I don’t think the IBC tracks non-violent deaths at all, or at the very least not in any systematic way, so their count shouldn’t have anything to do with this number.
If somebody told me that the excess death figure after 40 months of occupation was 50,000 by violent means (the IBC figure) plus another 50,000 by increased “regular” mortality, I think I’d be inclined to believe that. 650,000 on the other hand…
BTW…I don’t have the Lancet study in front of me right now (different computer than before), but if I remember the numbers correctly, they claimed an extreme rise in the amount of fatalities over the past year, something like a mortality of nearly 20 per 1000 per annum, which would mean 400,000 excess deaths just for July 2005 to June 2006 (the last year of the study period). Anybody seen reports of 1,000 people being killed by violence every single day? No, me neither.
If one accepts the Lancet numbers published you must also admit we should have Nuked Baghdad with a bomb about the size of the one dropped on Hiroshima. That leaves a Nagasaki sized nuke for Tehran and a old fashioned fire bombing for Pyongyang and we’d still be ahead on the casualty game with saved lives! Thanks Lancet!
#103
This means that it is possible that there were fictitious violent deaths. But of course, these fictitious deaths were caused by the coalition.
They were in the Lebanese ambulance
I thought that the fictitious deaths happened in the ambulance, all 590 odd thousand of them.I think I know kilo’s name. It’s Ken*.
Thanks Mental, another
damselold dame defended.#111, PW:
I dont get why you are so caught up in trying to understand the numbers. Take a look at the means of collecting the “data” to generate those numbers.
Someone was hired to go door to door in the areas most affected. Those someones had to be individuals able to safely move around in areas dominated by “insurgents”. The only people able to do so are fellows of the same murder/death squads.
We’ve seen much the same from MSM “journalists” that hire “stringers” to find their news for them. Those stringers are most often the same “minder” that was assigned to them by the Saddam regime prior to the invasion or is someone known to be able to move safely among the killers.Now these hired folk (you know damn sure it wasnt the actual perfessers and school folk that did it because their heads are still attached to their bodies) go door to door, supposedly, and simply ask “hey, how many of your kin died by getting shot lately?”
No proof asked for or offered.Now, we can not even be sure that anyone was actually asked any questions at all. For all that can be proven, those hired to do the sampling simply made up the numbers without actually going to the trouble of asking folk that would only be interested in telling stories and making up their own shit anyway.
Now, they take this “data” and extrapolate it to include the entirety of Iraq on a per capita percent.
There is nothing about this “report” that is legitimate. Not one single aspect.
From start to finish this is a propaganda piece by design and function.
You know, you guys can laugh and make your jokes, but the truly tragic thing about The Lancet 654,965 is how they died anonymously ... their names unknown to history ... almost as if ... they ... never ... existed.
Excuse me ... I’m a little verklempt. Discuss. Tawk amongst yourselves.
Posted by crittenden on 2006 10 12 at 08:24 AM • permalinkWell, except for 547 of them. The Death Certificate 547. Presumeably they have names. So make that 654,418. Remember The Lancet 654,418!
Posted by crittenden on 2006 10 12 at 08:29 AM • permalinkIraq was nuked from orbit. It was the only way to make sure.
Posted by Some0Seppo on 2006 10 12 at 09:37 AM • permalinkI dont get why you are so caught up in trying to understand the numbers.
Because I like numbers. :) More seriously: I’m trying to understand the numbers because, while simply saying “it’s all made up from start to finish” is easy and tempting (and I’m certainly aware that’s a pretty good possibility given the track records of the people behind it), there’s a much better chance to credibly debunk this thing by looking at the actual content and trying to work out where exactly it contradicts reality as observed by everybody else. Tim’s update suggestion regarding the number of claimed death certificates vs. the number of produced death certificates falls into the same category of proof by contradiction.
Anyway, I’m back at my own computer now, and yeah, they’re saying that there have been around 340,000 violent deaths from June 2005 to June 2006 (i.e. nearly 900 per day), and total excess fatalities numbering 380,000.
On another note…Table 3 in the study (that’s the one summarizing the annualized mortality rates) seems to be pretty well fucked to my eyes. A whole lot of numbers just don’t seem to add up in there, and surprisingly enough (not), everything that doesn’t add up seems to be higher than it should be.
Oh, and Figure 4 in the study is total bullshit. In it, the authors seem to try hard to imply that their numbers are quite similar to those of the IBC and the Dept of Defense - they do that by plotting their mortality rates in the same diagram as the absolute death counts reported by the IBC and the DOD, with the two different axes conveniently chosen to make the three graphs look similar.
If anyone cares to take a look at that graphic: Lancet Figure 4
The more I look at that image, the more it seems to be made up all the way, even beyond the trickery in comparing rates and absolutes. The DOD death count allegedly exceeds the IBC one by over 30%, which is news to me. Of course, they’re attributing that number to something called the “Department of Defence”, which could be anything, but not the U.S. Department of Defense.
just to get your blood boiling, here’s a quote from the Lancet article:
The circumstances of a number of deaths from gunshots suggest assassinations or executions. Coalition forces have been reported as targeting all men of military
age.Posted by daddy dave on 2006 10 12 at 11:30 AM • permalinkTHE LANCET IS DELIBERATELY PUBLISHING LIES
‘The grim question of how many people have died in Iraq has sparked heated debate over the years. The controversy dates from 1995, when researchers with a Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) study in Iraq wrote to The Lancet, the journal of the British Medical Society, asserting that sanctions were responsible for the deaths of 567,000 Iraqi children. The New York Times picked up the story and declared “Iraq Sanctions Kill Children.” CBS followed up with a segment on 60 Minutes that repeated the numbers and depicted sanctions as a murderous assault on children. This was the program in which UN ambassador (and later Secretary of State) Madeleine Albright, when asked about these numbers, coldly stated, “The price is worth it.”’
‘Albright’s comments were shocking, as were the numbers, but doubts were soon raised about their validity. A January 1996 letter to The Lancet found inconsistencies in the mortality figures. A follow-up study in 1996, using the same methodology, found much lower rates of child mortality. In October 1997 the authors of the initial letter wrote again to The Lancet, this time reporting that mortality rates in the follow-up study were “several-fold lower than the estimate for 1995—for unknown reasons.” While the initial report of more than 567,000 deaths attracted major news coverage, the subsequent disavowal of those numbers passed unnoticed in the press.’
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011203/cortright
The above is from an article which appeared in the periodical The Nation, and it’s fairly accurate (well those two paragraphs are, anyway…the rest of the article is a bunch of crap), except on one point, and that is this part: “for unknown reasons”. Nah, the reasons are totally well known. It’s because the people who were interviewed fucking lied to the people conducting the study, and the people conducting the study discovered this by doing a follow up study, in which they asked the same people the following question they’d asked in the first study: Did your baby live or die? And you know what? MOST people changed their story (hard as that is to believe).
The follow up:
‘As a check on the accuracy of these data, a subsequent study in 1996 (45) selected 44 newly randomized clusters throughout Baghdad and repeated 20 clusters from 1995. Only 80% of the mothers interviewed in repeat clusters could be confirmed as having been previously interviewed the year before. Among these 237 mothers, 96% of all births were confirmed on both surveys but 65 of the 74 deaths reported among them in 1995 were not reported again in 1996. Nine of the 18 deaths reported in 1996 had not been reported in 1995. The 1995 study’s conclusions were subsequently withdrawn by the authors (45), but not before national projections from these flawed data were published. Notwithstanding the retraction of the original data, their estimate of more than 500,000 excess child deaths due to the embargo is still often repeated by sanctions critics.’
http://www.casi.org.uk/info/garfield/dr-garfield.html
65 of 74, and 9 of 18 people changed their story within a year? Give me a break.
The fact of the matter is is that the “Ask people a question and then believe the answer” method of collecting data is totally, and utterly unreliable, and both the publishers of The Lancet, and the people conducting these “studies”, using the same method used in the FAO studies, know damned well that isn’t ever going to produce accurate results (I suspect that’s why they aren’t doing follow ups anymore).
Posted by Dave Surls on 2006 10 12 at 11:35 AM • permalinkOh, right, the hundreds of thousands killed by sanctions…I didn’t know that was originally pushed in the Lancet, too.
That’s an unintentional beauty of the newer studies…by using the generally accepted pre-invasion mortality figures for Iraq, they implicitly admit that the purported excess mortality due to sanctions was a big crock.
“Oh, right, the hundreds of thousands killed by sanctions…I didn’t know that was originally pushed in the Lancet, too.”
Yup, that’s where it came from, a completely bogus study originally published by The Lancet, and also from “data” provided by the Baathist Ministry of Propaganda.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2006 10 12 at 12:23 PM • permalinkSo Iraq has almost the same rate of population loss as Japan had during WWII? 550 Iraqi dead per day? Give me a break. With the last study these folks did right before the 2004 election, this is beyond questionable methodology. It borders on election tampering.
Posted by G Hamid USA on 2006 10 12 at 12:33 PM • permalinkA more likely parallel between Iraq in 2003-6 than Germany in 1943-5 would be Spain 1936-9.
Almost the same populations, around 25 million. Similar conditions: civil war based on religion and poor v. rich, complicated by invasion of foreign armies.
It is generally thought that about 1 million Spaniards died in the Civil War, so 600K Iraqis is not an impossible number, conceptually.
For a 1,500 day war, it would mean 400 deaths/day.
If evenly distributed, that would require 100/day in Baghdad, since it holds about one quarter of the population.
Baghdad has recently come pretty close to this rate, although it hasn’t maintained it for anything like 1,500 days—yet.
Posted by Harry Eagar on 2006 10 12 at 12:48 PM • permalinkFor a 1,500 day war, it would mean 400 deaths/day.
That’s assuming the death rate is constant. They claim it accelerated after their last
pile of shitstudy, meaning the last two years have seen some 550,000 deaths. That’s about 750 deaths/day; is that believable?There’s also the matter of, well, where are the bodies?
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 10 12 at 04:15 PM • permalinkKilo:
So, only 547 Iraqi’s have died since the invasion?
Yep.
Posted by AlburyShifton on 2006 10 12 at 07:39 PM • permalinkRob, I have no idea what the total might be, but Bush supporters should be less concerned about the Lancet study (which I have not attempted to analyze; I was merely drawing an historical parallel, like our host, Mr. Blair) than about the crazy statement of Casey that the total cannot be much above 50K.
It certainly can be and must be. The exact, or even fairly exact, total does not interest me very much. That the high command of the Army and the civilian government is suffering from terminal WFD (Westmoreland Fantasy Disease) does bother me.
Posted by Harry Eagar on 2006 10 12 at 11:54 PM • permalinkKae, The “wait for it…” between 113 and 115 was well worth it.
” ‘ken ‘tard ”—Very good.
(If I had a cape, kae, I would gladly remove it with a flourish and cover over the reeking slime that is kilo—that you might stride forward without soiling your slippers on such smegma.)
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 13 at 12:44 AM • permalinkGrimmy, because Iraq IS a violent place and the war has gone on for a long time.
Coalition + Iraq government security forces deaths, a number that is reliable, total around 17K. To get to 50K, you have to assume only 2 other deaths per uniformed death.
Are you going to suggest the ratio is less than 2:1?
Posted by Harry Eagar on 2006 10 13 at 01:03 PM • permalinkCoalition + Iraq government security forces deaths, a number that is reliable, total around 17K.Mind sourcing your numbers?
Here’s the totals for US deaths in Iraq to date, including civilain contracters
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf
Total US Deaths = 2,752 to date
I have yet to find anything solid on Iraqi Sec Force deaths totals yet.
I did find a CNN statement that there have been approx 12k “casualties” in the Iraqi Sec Forces and Police. But casualties are not all deaths. Casualty is anyone that suffers injury that requires treatment.
That same CNN piece said 4k ISF&P killed, approximatly.
So that’s *approximatly 6,752 deaths but also notice the larger of the numbers is an approximatly number.
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I can also prove that there were lots more deaths on European soil on June 5, 1945 than on June 5, 1944.