Iraq Death Toll

[Cypress]

More than 600,000 Iraqis have died by violence since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to a study released today by researchers at Johns Hopkins Univ. The figure is based on surveys of households throughout most of the country. It vastly exceeds estimates cited by the Iraqi government, the United Nations, aid and anti-war groups, and Bush.

More at link...

Who cares if one "believes" this estimate or not.

"Belief" is best left in the realm of religion, faith, and lottery tickets. Refuting a credible, scientific, peer-reviewed study, by claiming anyone who states that they simply don't "believe" it, is lame.

This new Lancet study is based on empircal data, with acceptable statistical methodology and peer review. And it is consistent with the previous Lancet estimate from November 2004.

Anyone who's got a credible peer reviewed scientific estimate that refutes the two Lancet studies is welcome to post it:

"Epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore randomly surveyed 1,849 homes in 47 sites across Iraq, asking household members about births, deaths and migration.

The technique, known as “cluster sampling” is used to estimate mortality in famines and following natural disasters.

When there had been a death in the household, interviewers asked about the cause of death. In 92 per cent of cases deaths were confirmed by a death certificate, although participants were not asked whether those who had died were soldiers or civilians.

The study found 629 reported deaths, of which 87 per cent were in the post-invasion period. The mortality rate before the occupation was 5.5 per 1,000 per year, compared to 13.3 per 1,000 per year after it.

The researchers found mortality rates from violent causes had increased every year since the start of the war with 27 in the surveyed households in 2003, 77 in 2004, 105 in 2005 and 91 in the first six months of this year

They found 31 per cent of violent deaths in the post-invasion period were attributable to coalition forces.

Extrapolating to the whole country, they said that of the 655,000 estimated extra deaths, 601,000 would have been caused by violence, with gunshots accounting for 56 per cent, air strikes, car bombs and other explosions.

The same group in 2004 estimated there had been about 100,000 deaths in the 18 months following the invasion.

Prof Gilbert Burnham, co-director of the Centre for Refugee and Disaster Response at Johns Hopkins, said he and colleagues were confident their study was accurate because the results correlated with their estimate from two years ago and the majority of deaths were substantiated by death certificates.

 

[Damocles]

It was interesting to read in this particular study that slightly over 70% of those deaths were from terrorists and not from the US.

 

[uscitizen]

"terrorist's" that would not have been there if not for us destabilizing the country.

 

[Cypress]

It was interesting to read in this particular study that slightly over 70% of those deaths were from terrorists and not from the US.

No doubt.

More people are dying from a civil war bush helped create, than are dying from US troops. I can totally buy that.

 

[Care4all]

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

enough said....

why enough said Write? do you KNOW SOMETHING about MIT that would make you say that , imo... ridiculous snippet?

care

 

[Cypress]

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

enough said....

Whoa, really?

That gives the study even more crediblity.

MIT is one the most honored, and acknowledged leaders in scientific and technical research in the United States....the world, in fact.

If this study lived up to the methodology and peer-review requirements of MIT, it is indeed a robust and credible study.

 

[Damocles]

lol. Once again, asking people at their houses if somebody has died is not a credible way to collect this information.

 

[Cypress]

lol. Once again, asking people at their houses if somebody has died is not a credible way to collect this information.

Now might be a good time to retract that "lol".

they didn't simply just "ask" if somebody died. They verified it, in a scientifically credible and defensible way:

The technique, known as “cluster sampling” is used to estimate mortality in famines and following natural disasters.

When there had been a death in the household, interviewers asked about the cause of death. In 92 per cent of cases deaths were confirmed by a death certificate, although participants were not asked whether those who had died were soldiers or civilians.

The study found 629 reported deaths, of which 87 per cent were in the post-invasion period. The mortality rate before the occupation was 5.5 per 1,000 per year, compared to 13.3 per 1,000 per year after it. ...


Prof Gilbert Burnham, co-director of the Centre for Refugee and Disaster Response at Johns Hopkins, said he and colleagues were confident their study was accurate because the results correlated with their estimate from two years ago and the majority of deaths were substantiated by death certificates.

 

[Damocles]

Now might be a good time to retract that "lol".

they didn't simply just "ask" if somebody died. They verified it, in a scientifically credible and defensible way:

The technique, known as “cluster sampling” is used to estimate mortality in famines and following natural disasters.

When there had been a death in the household, interviewers asked about the cause of death. In 92 per cent of cases deaths were confirmed by a death certificate, although participants were not asked whether those who had died were soldiers or civilians.

The study found 629 reported deaths, of which 87 per cent were in the post-invasion period. The mortality rate before the occupation was 5.5 per 1,000 per year, compared to 13.3 per 1,000 per year after it. ...


Prof Gilbert Burnham, co-director of the Centre for Refugee and Disaster Response at Johns Hopkins, said he and colleagues were confident their study was accurate because the results correlated with their estimate from two years ago and the majority of deaths were substantiated by death certificates.

It might be time to retract this "verifiable". This particular way of sampling does not detract for duplication. This particular sampling overstates numbers significantly. I know you like the number because it sets in your mind certain political certainties that you would like to have verified, but the reality is the number is likely to be far less.

 

[TRGLDTE]

Whoa, really?

That gives the study even more crediblity.

MIT is one the most honored, and acknowledged leaders in scientific and technical research in the United States....the world, in fact.

If this study lived up to the methodology and peer-review requirements of MIT, it is indeed a robust and credible study.

MIT doesn't fund studies, they get paid to do studies. The news report indicated that the report was from Johns Hopkins, not MIT. Hopkins is at a high level as well. If this was peer-reviewed that adds a high level of 'gravitas;' however, not every report that comes from every university is peer-reviewed. It may be a journal article (some journals review, some do not), or even a plain old "Whitepaper."

 

[TRGLDTE]

Now might be a good time to retract that "lol".

they didn't simply just "ask" if somebody died. They verified it, in a scientifically credible and defensible way:

The technique, known as “cluster sampling” is used to estimate mortality in famines and following natural disasters.

When there had been a death in the household, interviewers asked about the cause of death. In 92 per cent of cases deaths were confirmed by a death certificate, although participants were not asked whether those who had died were soldiers or civilians.

The study found 629 reported deaths, of which 87 per cent were in the post-invasion period. The mortality rate before the occupation was 5.5 per 1,000 per year, compared to 13.3 per 1,000 per year after it. ...


Prof Gilbert Burnham, co-director of the Centre for Refugee and Disaster Response at Johns Hopkins, said he and colleagues were confident their study was accurate because the results correlated with their estimate from two years ago and the majority of deaths were substantiated by death certificates.

He's looking at total dead, not those directly attributable to US military action.

 

[Prakosh]

I know you righties here are having a heck of a time trying to believe that anyone has died in Iraq what with Bush claiming still that only 30,000 have died and he mourning every one of their deaths, and Casey sticking to 50,000 no mention of mourning here, he being a general and they being the enemy, and certainly no one here even wanting to consider that nearly a 150,000 have died as John McLaughlin of The McLaughlin Report claims.

In fact, taking all of this into consideration I am beginning to believe that their is a great deal of evidence to suggest that probably no one has died in the war in Iraq, I am even beginning to think that there is no war in Iraq and the whole thing is just a highly constructed mythical representation much like the fake trip to the moon that was carefully choreographed insome Hollywood back lot. I think that Steven Speilberg is producing the daily battlefield videos and the whole thing is nothing but a vast conspiracy to shovel hundreds of billions of dollars to American corpotations but in fact there is no war and no one has died.

Having admitted up front that I don't believe the Iraq war even exists, I would like to give you all an excerpt from an interview with one of the co-authors of the report that was broadcast on DemocracyNow, one of those radical communist propaganda shows that comes around every once in a while and somehow escapes the government censors.

Here is the excerpt w/the co-author of the research, Les Roberts formerly of John Hopkins now of Columbia University:


AMY GOODMAN: Les Roberts joins us now from Syracuse, New York. He’s one of the main researchers of the study. He was with Johns Hopkins when he co-authored the study but has just taken a post at Columbia University. Les Roberts, welcome to Democracy Now!

LES ROBERTS: Hi, Amy. It’s nice to be with you again.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Why don't you lay out exactly what you found?

LES ROBERTS: Sure, we, as you said, went to about 50 neighborhoods spread around Iraq that were picked at random, and each time we went, we knocked on 40 doors and asked people, "Who lived here on the first of January, 2002?" and "Who lived here today?" And we asked, "Had anyone been born or died in between?" And on those occasions, when people said someone die, we said, "Well, how did they die?" And we sort of wrote down the details: when, how old they were, what was the cause of death. And when it was violence, we asked, "Well, who did the killing? How exactly did it happen? What kind of weapon was used?" And at the end of the interview, when no one knew this was coming, we asked most of the time for a death certificate. And 92% of the time, people walked back into their houses and could produce a death certificate. So we are quite sure people didn’t make this up.

And our conclusion was comparing the death rate for that 14 months before the invasion, with the 40 months after, that the death rate is now about four times higher. And, in fact, it’s twice as high as when we last spoke two years ago and when we did our first study. So, things have gotten bad, as you stated. We think about 650,000 extra people have died because of this invasion, and about 600,000, some 90%, are from violence.

…

You know, I don't want to sort of stoop to that level and start saying general slurs, but I just want to say that what we did, this cluster survey approach, is the standard way of measuring mortality in very poor countries where the government isn’t very functional or in times of war. And when UNICEF goes out and measures mortality in any developing country, this is what they do. When the U.S. government went at the end of the war in Kosovo or went at the end of the war in Afghanistan and the U.S. government measured the death rate, this is how they did it. And most ironically, the U.S. government has been spending millions of dollars per year, through something called the Smart Initiative, to train NGOs and UN workers to do cluster surveys to measure mortality in times of wars and disasters.

So, I think we used a very standard method. I think our results are couched appropriately in the relative imprecision of [inaudible]. It could conceivably be as few as 400,000 deaths. So we’re upfront about that. We don’t know the exact number. We just know the range, and we’re very, very confident about both the method and the results.


Full Commie Interview

 

[OrnotBitwise]

He's looking at total dead, not those directly attributable to US military action.

True. Wouldn't a measure of the overall death rate be a better indicator of quality of life than any study that attempts to measure only certain types of deaths?

 

[Cypress]

He's looking at total dead, not those directly attributable to US military action.

I understand.

But, Bush is at least partially responsible for setting the stage for a civil war, an insurgency, and sectarian violence.

Bush and his fans cannot escape responsibility for that.

 

[Cypress]

It might be time to retract this "verifiable". This particular way of sampling does not detract for duplication. This particular sampling overstates numbers significantly. I know you like the number because it sets in your mind certain political certainties that you would like to have verified, but the reality is the number is likely to be far less.

Damo, can't you even admit you were wrong in asserting that they simply "asked" families about deaths?

They went beyond simply "asking". They verified most of the deaths, via death certificates.

 

[Damocles]

Damo, can't you even admit you were wrong in asserting that they simply "asked" families about deaths?

They went beyond simply "asking". They verified most of the deaths, via death certificates.

I didn't say it was impossible to be right, I said it is likely to be wrong. The particular way that they did it does not negate the duplication effect. One family may have members in more than one area of Iraq, the same death may be counted multiple times. Even with this type of verification, unless all were collected together in one place and duplication removed, still can produce significant duplication.

If you cannot admit that this type of sampling can be hugely inaccurate quickly then you truly are wearing partisan blinders.

 

[Cypress]

I didn't say it was impossible to be right, I said it is likely to be wrong. The particular way that they did it does not negate the duplication effect. One family may have members in more than one area of Iraq, the same death may be counted multiple times. Even with this type of verification, unless all were collected together in one place and duplication removed, still can produce significant duplication.

If you cannot admit that this type of sampling can be hugely inaccurate quickly then you truly are wearing partisan blinders.

Spin Damo

Your first impression was that they didn't even bother to verify the deaths. They simply "asked" if anyone died.

Your trying to change the subject dude

These are professional researchers, well-versed in statistical methodology. They've forgotten more about statistical methodology than you and I have ever learned.

Of course they weren't simply going to walk into somebody's house, and "ask" them if there were any deaths, without some way to verify it. These guys are professionals, Damo. Give them a little more credit.

 

[Cypress]

MIT doesn't fund studies, they get paid to do studies. The news report indicated that the report was from Johns Hopkins, not MIT. Hopkins is at a high level as well. If this was peer-reviewed that adds a high level of 'gravitas;' however, not every report that comes from every university is peer-reviewed. It may be a journal article (some journals review, some do not), or even a plain old "Whitepaper."

Trog,

You'll have to take up that bone of contention with Write/Alpha/Bravo. He's the one who claimed it was MIT. I simply assumed he was telling the truth - which is usually a bad assumption with Write/Bravo.

 

[Damocles]

Spin Damo

Your first impression was that they didn't even bother to verify the deaths. They simply "asked" if anyone died.

Your trying to change the subject dude

These are professional researchers, well-versed in statistical methodology. They've forgotten more about statistical methodology than you and I have ever learned.

Of course they weren't simply going to walk into somebody's house, and "ask" them if there were any deaths, without some way to verify it. These guys are professionals, Damo. Give them a little more credit.

No, I read the whole thing. I just didn't have time to explain correctly. Statistics were one of my favorite classes. This type of sampling is not readily verifiable without centralizing the accounting location, which was not described as done on the report. Just getting copies of death certificates does not eliminate duplicate reporting when separate groups can get different copies of the same certificates.

I am not spinning, I am pointing out a specific mathematical problem, and the significant way it can quickly spin into ineffective inaccuracies.

This is one of the reasons why there were more than twice the deaths reported at the beginning of the WTC counts. Duplication in reports can create significant disparities. When several groups are collecting the data rather than a centralized reporting system, like with WTC, the disparities only get larger.

In order to get a reasonable sampling there would need to be reports taken accross the nation in several different groups. This creates significant chance for duplication.

 

[Cypress]

Damo,

If you've got a peer reviewed, professional statistical study of the deaths in Iraq between 2003-2006, which refutes the two peer reviewed Lancet studies, your welcome to post it.