Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey
President Bush answered a question about this study in his press conference yesterday:
Q [Suzanne Malveaux CNN] Thank you, Mr. President. Back on Iraq. A group of American and Iraqi health officials today released a report saying that 655,000 Iraqis have died since the Iraq war. That figure is 20 times the figure that you cited in December, at 30,000. Do you care to amend or update your figure, and do you consider this a credible report?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I don't consider it a credible report. Neither does General Casey and neither do Iraqi officials. I do know that a lot of innocent people have died, and that troubles me and it grieves me. And I applaud the Iraqis for their courage in the face of violence. I am amazed that this is a society which so wants to be free that they're willing to -- that there's a level of violence that they tolerate. And it's now time for the Iraqi government to work hard to bring security in neighborhoods so people can feel at peace.
No question, it's violent, but this report is one -- they put it out before, it was pretty well -- the methodology was pretty well discredited (*). But I talk to people like General Casey and, of course, the Iraqi government put out a statement talking about the report.
Q -- the 30,000, Mr. President? Do you stand by your figure, 30,000?
THE PRESIDENT: You know, I stand by the figure. A lot of innocent people have lost their life -- 600,000, or whatever they guessed at, is just -- it's not credible. Thank you.
The peer reviewed survey refered to above was done by Iraqi physicians and overseen by epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. The findings are being published online today by the British medical journal the Lancet.
An excess mortality of nearly 100 000 deaths was reported in Iraq for the period March, 2003 September, 2004, attributed to the invasion of Iraq. Our aim was to update this estimate.
...
In Iraq, as with other conflicts, civilians bear the consequences of warfare. In the Vietnam war, 3 million civilians died; in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, conflict has been responsible for 3
Tags
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Comments
(con credibility) some pertinant discussion at nationalreview.com.

In the context of the 2004 study, I was prepared to countenance another explanation: that the Iraqis were lying and systematically exaggerating the number of deaths. But in the 2006 study, death certificates were checked and found in 92% of cases.
This is a count done after the fact. The bodies were not present. They would have been long ago buried or otherwise disposed of; consequently they could not have been counted directly.
Methods: Between May and July, 2006, we did a national cross-sectional cluster sample survey of mortality in Iraq. 50 clusters were randomly selected from 16 Governorates, with every cluster consisting of 40 households. Information on deaths from these households was gathered.
review of press coverage url http://newsbusters.org/node/8261
lancet comment url http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673606694920/fulltext free registration required
The Lancet authors report that they attempted to confirm the death reports given to them by their interview subjects. They report being able to confirm 80% of the death reports by finding official death certificates filed by local and provincial governments. This augments the credibility of this part of their methodology - if, in a war zone, 80% of your self-reports are verified by government records, the reporting you
contains some mentions of experts agreeing with the study url http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003251404
There will be a concerted attempt to persuade people that the statistical issues involved in this study are difficult. They aren't. The correct way to think about this is as follows:
First, don't concentrate on the number 600,000 (or 655,000,
depending on where you read). This is a point estimate of the number of
excess Iraqi deaths - it's basically equal to the change in the death
rate since the invasion, multiplied by the population of Iraq,
multiplied by three-and-a-quarter years. Point estimates are almost
never the important results of statistical studies and I wish the
statistics profession would stop printing them as headlines. ......
Talk of confidence intervals becomes frankly irrelevant at this point. If you want to pick a figure for the precise number of excess deaths, then (1.33% - 0.55%) x 26,000,000 x 3.25 = 659,000 is as good as any, multiplying out the difference between the death rates by the population of Iraq and the time since the invasion. ....
That qualitative conclusion is this: things have got worse, and they have got a lot worse, not a little bit worse. Whatever detailed criticisms one might make of the methodology of the study (and I have searched assiduously for the last two years, with the assistance of a lot of partisans of the Iraq war who have tried to pick holes in the study, and not found any), the numbers are too big. If you go out and ask 12,000 people whether a family member has died and get reports of 300 deaths from violence, then that is not consistent with there being only 60,000 deaths from violence in a country of 26 million. It is not even nearly consistent.
The latest study received $90,000 from the Center for International Studies at MIT. John Tirman, the center
very interesting url http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/archives/2006_10_01_healingiraq_archive.html#116071590494473034
Reality checks: some responses to the latest Lancet estimates
Hamit Dardagan, John Sloboda, and Josh Dougherty
There is no legitimate, scientific basis for rejecting the findings of this survey carried out under the auspices of Johns Hopkins, one of the leading US universities. Under the direction of epidemiologists at the college
But Will the Press Confirm It?
The press, after its initial coverage, has turned away from the shocking Johns Hopkins study which estimated 400,000 to 800,000 deaths in the Iraq war since 2003. One of the authors of the study has issued a challenge: Check out their findings in the field -- and then confirm or debunk it.
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said the grant-making is "corrupting."
"The danger is that any group that gets money from the government will end up serving the interests of the state rather than the constituencies they are trying to serve," he said. "The guy who writes the check writes the rules."
"The sampling is solid. The methodology is as good as it gets," said John Zogby, whose Utica, N.Y.-based polling agency, Zogby International, has done several surveys in Iraq since the war began. "It is what people in the statistics business do."
Zogby said similar survey methods have been used to estimate casualty figures in other conflicts, such as Darfur and the Democratic People's Republic of Congo.
Finally a legitimate criticism ...
With so few cluster points, it is highly unlikely the Johns Hopkins survey is representative of the population in Iraq. However, there is a definitive method of establishing if it is. Recording the gender, age, education and other demographic characteristics of the respondents allows a researcher to compare his survey results to a known demographic instrument, such as a census.
Dr. Roberts said that his team's surveyors did not ask demographic questions. I was so surprised to hear this that I emailed him later in the day to ask a second time if his team asked demographic questions and compared the results to the 1997 Iraqi census. Dr. Roberts replied that he had not even looked at the Iraqi census.
And so, while the gender and the age of the deceased were recorded in the 2006 Johns Hopkins study, nobody, according to Dr. Roberts, recorded demographic information for the living survey respondents. This would be the first survey I have looked at in my 15 years of looking that did not ask demographic questions of its respondents. But don't take my word for it--try using Google to find a survey that does not ask demographic questions.
This is not strikly on topic because it does not shed any light on the truth of the study. However it does put the figures in a human perspective ...

If you are interested in getting to the truth of the matter look for some useful questions in this article, presumably an interview with Gilbert Burnham on the study. Lots of questions are raised in the comments on the article - both pro & con. Personally I don't think you can do this kind of study accurately in a war zone in a time of war where chaos reigns. Furthermore, the number is meaningless without some demographics on the people killed & the people who killed them.
Your consistent refusal to be interested in the demographics of the victims & the victimizers destroys any belief that I would have in your interest in getting to the truth of this matter.

Your consistent refusal to be interested in the demographics of the victims & the victimizers destroys any belief that I would have in your interest in getting to the truth of this matter.
Yes this article sheds light on the study. The science of accessing costs of policy as measured in human lifes is a science that needs to be developed. We need this kind of accessment, and if it is done scientifically, and always done using the same methodology, then, in the future, we could be comparing apples to apples. As it happens the American people really do not know what the overall cost in human lifes our Iraq policy has entailed.
And, again, it does not matter to this study who killed who. This assessment does not measure that. It is to access the effect in lives of our involvement. I can understand that those who look on the war as a score card ... did America win a war ... can we chalk another one up for the Gipper ... did we get victory ... did we spread Freedom ... would care whether those who died were gooks or blue bloods. Sorry i do not share that view. That Bush sacrificed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives on the altar of American supremacy, is a shame that he will take to his grave.
I realize that Star Trek's Prime Directive is fiction. But me thinks US foreign policy should become advised of its wisdom.


url http://slate.com/id/2151926 presents argument about baseline too low.
In case you missed it here is a nice piece by Victor Davis Hanson to help you get a perspective on the media circus (now with their heads firmly inserted up their election orofices) on headlines & stuff about Iraq: uri http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson041206.html, enjoy!
(;-))


The Iraq casualties get a bit murkey. Me thinks the Lancet report is a an overestimate probably because they used a underestimate for the starting base line. My own perceptions from the midea reports are that there are about 50 Iraqi deaths/day ... which is about 1500 per month ... wich agrees well with the icasualties.org figures. No gross distortion there.
In any case this site a good find ... i have been looking for something like this ... in particular the detailed database poiniting to the actual news reports.
Thanks.

The Iraqi casualties get a bit murkey. Me thinks the Lancet report is a an overestimates because they used a underestimate for the starting base line. My own perceptions from the media reports are that there are about 50 Iraqi deaths/day ... which is about 1500 per month ... wich agrees well with the icasualties.org figures. No gross distortion there.
In any case this site a good find ... i have been looking for something like this ... in particular the detailed database poiniting to the actual news reports.
Thanks.




"Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death."
--Ernest Hemingway




I wonder what it will be like when the suicide bombers come to our shores or, already being here, begin preparations for the 12th Imam. Remember, as you ponder how nice Ahmadinejad is, that it is OK in his mind at least to lie to infidels.


... is there anyone that can still think for themselves out there ?
But the authoritative Baghdad daily Azzaman and an Iraq website report that the story is a cover up for an unpremeditated massacre.
Patrick Cockburn of the London Independent writing from Baghdad called the official account "a fabrication."
The official version of the incident says Iraqi soldiers battled members of the messianic cult who were planning to disrupt the Shiite holy festival of Ashura. However, independent reports indicate the fighting occurred when members of the Hawatim tribe, on their way to the celebrations in Najaf, were attacked by Iraqi soldiers.
The report from Baghdad says a clash broke out between the Shiite tribe members on a pilgrimage to Najaf and an Iraqi army checkpoint, when Iraqi soldiers fired on a car killing the tribe's chief, his wife and their driver.
The tribesmen are reported to have retaliated by attacking the Iraqi military checkpoint. The Iraqis, claiming they were under attack from al-Qaida called for U.S. support.
There is more analysis re the Azzaman interpertation of the Najaf battle here. Apparently Azzaman is a Sunni dominated news outlet. If i were to have to guess now, i would guess that the official versions is a better truth than the Azzman version. Here is some more information from the LA Times. Nobody else is even talking about the Azzman version.





Alexandra Zavis of the Los Angeles Times reported to the Assyrian International News Agency reported that "At least 2,067 Iraqis were killed in insurgent and sectarian violence in January, according to figures compiled by the ministries of Defense and Health." This is about half of the Iraquis casualties reported here. Why?

Here is a chart of all the people killed in Iraq in January. One wonders what the escalation of violence in January after the announcement of the plan fortells? There is some analysis of it here.
British government officials have backed the methods used by scientists who concluded that more than 600,000 Iraqis have been killed since the invasion, the BBC reported yesterday.
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