Politics – Three weeks before the 2006 elections, the British medical journal Lancet published a bombshell report estimating that casualties in Iraq had exceeded 650,000 since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. We know that number was wildly exaggerated. The news is that now we know why.
BoBo you hit the nail on the head. The left seems to like lies. Especially by calling others liars.
So how is the hunt for the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction going? Have they found the mobile chemical production plants yet? How about those massive stock piles of Chemical and biological weapons that the administration knew where theyt were, have they been found yet, or was that just a pack of lies to lead you guys head long over the clif.... um, er.. head long into the invasion and occupation of an oil rich arab nation that did not attack us? What about the flowers.....
Nobody knows how many Iraqis have lost their lives because they don't count them.
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"In other words, the Lancet study could hardly be more unreliable. Yet it was trumpeted by the political left because it fit a narrative that they wanted to believe. And it wasn't challenged by much of the press because it told them what they wanted to hear. The truth was irrelevant."
as in so many other cases, the Left certainly wasn't going to let pesky facts get in the way of the "Truth". My only question is how many will continue to cling to the fabricated and discredited numbers?
"And it wasn't challenged by much of the press because it told them what they wanted to hear. The truth was irrelevant."
Yeah, there are a LOT of lazy reporters out there.
I don't know whether the Lancet study is reliable or not, but there is no solid evidence in this article that proves that it isn't. This is all just innuendo. Even the most recent estimate of 135,000 or so is just an estimate because nobody is counting the dead. As far as I remember, the Iraqi Government gave strict instructions after the Lancet study to all hospitals, funeral homes, etc. to withhold all information from anybody trying to count the dead.
You don't "remember" very well, Candida, because you never had reliable information to begin with. Your comment here is more reflex than insight.
Why would you say that? What did CANDIDA say that was "more reflex than insight"?
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/25/i...
"The United Nations is unable to determine how many Iraqi civilians have been killed so far this year because the Iraqi government won't share the information, a U.N. agency said in a Wednesday report."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/20/iraq/...
" Iraq's prime minister has barred the Health Ministry from releasing alarming casualty figures that showed violence in Iraq was killing 100 civilians a day and provided a rare insight into the worsening sectarian conflict, according to an internal U.N. memo obtained Friday."
While the Lancet study was widely reported, most news organizations I listen to used the figures from the more conservative Iraq Body Count, which shows 80k-87k civilians killed but does not count the total number of Iraqis killed.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
You'd be better arguing with someone who would listen to reason. These stories are submitted to incite. They are seldom based on verifiable facts.
As referenced in this story, the Lancet "study" used only 46 samples and extrapolated for the whole country while the UN figures used 1000 samples. Also the studies authors and the Lancet editor are strongly anti-Iraq war. Additionally, the Lancet editor has admitted that the publication was rushed and normal peer review was not followed. Finally, the man who collected the so called data refuses to release it publicly.
All of the above are based on verifiable facts.
To pretend that Lancet study is not, at the very least, highly questionable is what really requires "more reflex than insight".
(1) The Lancet author admits it's difficult to count fatalities in the midst of a war.
(2) The UN study used a different methodology than the Johns Hopkins University. The UN only counted those who died directly from acts of violence. The JHU study counts all those who have died as a result of the lack of essential services (clean water, hospital care, etc.) as a result of living in a war zone.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22578010/page/2/
"The WHO survey tallied only violence-related deaths, but researchers plan future reports on other health measures."
(3) The number of deaths is tragic/catastrophic regardless of whether you use the UN estimates 104k-223k or the JHU estimate of 600k.
(4) The UN survey has ALSO been criticized for underreporting fatalities because (A) families don't want to report violent deaths, (B) families are afraid of cooperating with the Iraq government for fear of retribution, (C) the UN survey did not show rising death counts in recent years despite the rising violence from 2003 to 2006, and (D) some of the most violent neighborhoods in Iraq weren't even visited or polled because they were deemed "too dangerous" to enter.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22578010/
"'That seems low, especially because the new survey saw no increase in deaths in recent years, as previous surveys did,' said Columbia University's Dr. Ronald Waldman. More than 100 neighborhoods, mostly in Baghdad and Anbar, could not be visited for safety reasons. 'This is consistent with family members not wanting to tell the government about violent deaths' Lee Roberts said."
CANDIDA is right. We likely won't know the true number until years from now.
The Lancet study suffers from the same problems in addition to the fact that it relies on less than 1/20th the sample size.
Why does so much of the Left find it more believable?
BOBO:
"The Lancet study suffers from the same problems"
The UN only counts those who died by acts of violence. The Lancet study considers all those who died as a result of living in a war zone, including those who died from lack of clean water, hospital care, etc.
BOBO:
"Why does so much of the Left find it more believable?"
You have fallen victim again to the logical fallacy of the false dichotomy--either the Lancet is right or the UN is right. It doesn't occur to you that they both might be inaccurate, with the UN underreporting and the Lancet overreporting. Contrary to your misperceptions, the "Left" does not find the Lancet study to be "more believable." The "Left" recognizes that both studies have flaws and that the true number will likely not be know for years to come. You do not consider this an option because you've limited the possible answers with your false dichotomy.
Why is this so difficult for you to comprehend?
ybdogsct
"The Lancet study considers all those who died as a result of living in a war zone, including those who died from lack of clean water, hospital care, etc."
Ybdogsct, So so close. This may be a case of can't see the forest cause of the tress.
The Lancet study considers/counts ALL those who died while living in a war zone as deaths caused by the war. ALL regardless of the actual cause, old age, cancer, traffic accidents, homicides, accidents in general.
A true but pointless statement to the situation is just that, true but pointless.
Example:
Since the invasion Iraq, 2003 thru 2007, 120K Americans have died horrible tragic deaths.
The statement is absolutely true but pointless as we usually have 40K deaths a year due to traffic accidents.
INJEST:
"The Lancet study considers/counts ALL those who died while living in a war zone as deaths caused by the war. ALL regardless of the actual cause."
No. Deaths by regular traffic accident are NOT counted by the Lancet study. Only deaths caused by war zone conditions, like lack of access to clean drinking water, count.
This is why the Lancet study used the term "excess deaths." Their figures count the number of Iraqis who died in excess of the average fatality rate in pre-invasion Iraq. So, suppose 50k Iraqis die of natural causes and accidents every 5 years, but 700k Iraqis died between 2003-2007. Then the count of "excess deaths" is 650k. And this profound deviation from the normal mean fatality rate can be largely attributed to the hazards of living in a war zone.
"No. Deaths by regular traffic accident are NOT counted by the Lancet study. Only deaths caused by war zone conditions, like lack of access to clean drinking water, count."
When the "key" element is "war zone conditions" anything and everything is related. If the traffic accident was caused by a broken water main, one could say the broken water main was caused by "war zone conditions". With something as vague as "war zone conditions" there is no limit as to what can apply to.
INJEST:
"If the traffic accident was caused by a broken water main, one could say the broken water main was caused by "war zone conditions"."
I think it's safe to conclude that something these particular incidents would be small in number and would NOT explain the difference of hundreds of thousands of uncounted dead. However, what is significant are the profound public health hazards of living in a war zone. A "traffic accident caused by a broken water main" may claim a handful of lives (an insignificant number compared to the author's calculated uncertainty); a lack of clean drinking water, however, could alone kill thousands--which is a significant number.
You can try inventing hypotheticals such as "a traffic accident caused by a broken water main," but these incidents have been shown to be relatively minor players. The biggest causes of fatality by far are the acts of violence and public health emergencies endemic to living in a war zone.
"NOT explain the difference of hundreds of thousands of uncounted dead".
That would also explain the un found bodies of the uncounted dead at a rate of 1 every 2 min. 7/24/365 X 2 years.
At some point ya have to let common sense set in. That many dead would have showed up somewhere. The fact that Anti-war Soros funded Iraq study and led by Les Roberts, an associate professor and epidemiologist at Columbia University. He reportedly opposed the war from the outset, just might skew the results?
If not why did they hide that info?
In other news a study today found that drinking alcohol daily is a good thing. The study found that hard liquor was not as good for you as say beer, but wine was found to be the ideal drink for everyone.
The Study was funded by the Northern California Napa Valley farmers association.
BTW the Northern California Napa Valley farmers study was real. A few years back
INJEST:
"That many dead would have showed up somewhere."
They are showing up. Many are showing up in mass graves. I'm sure there are more mass graves that have yet to be discovered.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/12/19/iraq....
"26 bodies were uncovered in mass graves next to what were thought to be execution sites"
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-12-03-i...
"More than 100 bodies, including women and children, have turned up since October in the remote desert terrain surrounding Lake Tharthar. Most of the victims have no IDs, but officials have said they were likely abducted and murdered by al-Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgents."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,102...
"The task of identifying thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians who died during this year's war has begun with the exhumation of a mass grave at one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces in Baghdad."
Furthermore, you continue to ignore the fact that the reason why the Lancet study and the UN study were different is because their methodologies were so different. The UN only counted those who died directly from act of violence. The Lancet counts all who died as a result of living in war zone conditions.
INJEST:
"In other news a study today found that drinking alcohol daily is a good thing."
In moderation, yes alcohol has been demonstrated to have some desirable effects. Alcohol in moderation acts as a vasodilator, which may be beneficial to those suffering from hypertension and atherosclerosis. These results have been corroborated by researchers unlinked to winemakers, and the science of alcohol's vasodilatory activity is relatively well understood. Just because one of the studies was sponsored by winemakers does NOT discredit the science behind the results. This is a poor example, and it's clear you don't know what you're talking about.
Lancet in October 2004 claimed 98,000 civilian deaths
Lancet in October 11 2006 claimed 655,000 Iraqis killed since invasion'
In other words Lancet is claiming 559000 deaths tween Oct 04 to Oct 06 that's 24 months Or 730 days.
559000 divide by 730 equals 765.75 each day! Every day! For 24 solid months.
31.9 EVERY hour,
1 war related death every 2 min 24/7
Where are the bodies?
That would be a hell of a lot of fire fights.
How has every news agency world wide not notice that level of carnage?
What do you suspect where the bodies are, and who calculates them, when the infrastructure of the country has collapsed and 4 million people have run from their houses? In cases like this, you don't get the exact numbers and body counts from any source! That's why the study was done in the first place.
And it's not all combat deaths. According Lancet study 31% of the deaths were caused by the coalition foces. But all of the deaths were indeed caused by the invasion.
INJEST:
"In other words Lancet is claiming 559000 deaths tween Oct 04 to Oct 06 that's 24 months Or 730 days."
No. Your oversimplistic arithmetic is incorrect because The Lancet is a journal that publishes OTHER SCIENTISTS' research. The Lancet itself does NOT "claim" anything.
For example, the study that claimed 650k fatalities was performed by Johns Hopkins and submitted for publication in the Lancet. If the second study you cited was not performed by the same group of scientists at Johns Hopkins, then it is simply a case of two different researchers arriving at a different set of results. To explain the discrepancy, one would have to closely re-examine their methodologies.
The Lancet study was commissioned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and led by Les Roberts, an associate professor and epidemiologist at Columbia University. He reportedly opposed the war from the outset.
His team surveyed 1,849 homes at 47 sites across Iraq, asking people about births, deaths and migration in their households
Professor John Tirman of MIT said this weekend that $46,000 (£23,000) of the approximate £50,000 cost of the study had come from Soros's Open Society Institute.
Roberts said this weekend: "In retrospect, it was probably unwise to have taken money that could have looked like it would result in a political slant. I am adamant this could not have affected the outcome of the research."
The Lancet did not break any rules by failing to disclose Soros's sponsorship.
INJEST:
"The Lancet study was commissioned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and led by Les Roberts"
The study was corroborated by a Johns Hopkins study.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...
"A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred. The survey was done by Iraqi physicians and overseen by epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health."
http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/press_rel...
"Updated Iraq survey conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad affirms earlier mortality estimates. As many as 654,965 more Iraqis may have died than would have been expected under pre-war conditions."
-For the Lancet Iraq study, data were collected from 47 randomly selected clusters of 40 households each.
-Total number of households included was 1849.
-The results from the new study closely match the finding of the group's October 2004 mortality survey.
http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/press_rel...
-92% of those asked for death certificates produced them to Lancet interviewers.
-The 2007 ORB (Opinion Research Business), published an estimate of the total casualties of the Iraq war, that is consistent with the Lancet numbers.
-In June 2006, the Iraq's Ministry of Health reported zero violent deaths in Anbar Province, but US army reported a high number of combat deaths and combat action was shown in TV broadcasts.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_...
If the Lancet study is so well designed, why won't they release their raw data as usual? Given the political leaning of those involved, and the fact that they are an extreme outlier, the answer is obvious.
BOBO:
"If the Lancet study is so well designed, why won't they release their raw data as usual?"
Actually, this is not an uncommon practice in the scientific community. Scientists normally don't like to release their raw data because a publication doesn't always mark the end of the research into that topic. Scientists continuing to delve deeper into the problem can publish several more papers; since the original scientist doesn't want others catching up to them and "outscooping" them, the original scientists will withhold raw data and provide only the methodology for publication. Really, all that is required for publication is a release of the methodology.
Also, many Iraqis would feel threatened if it had been revealed that they cooperated with the US or coalition forces in any way. Certainly, many have already been killed for doing so. The authors of the Lancet study may be keeping their sources confidential to protect these Iraqis from harm.
The Iraq Body Count won't ever give you the real civilian death toll!
The Iraq Body Count Project mainly lists civilian deaths announced in the ENGLISH WRITTEN MEDIA. The majority of the deaths are go unreported, and more so unreported in English media. It is not a reliable source of estimating real total death toll, but is a way to estimate the MINIMUM death toll.
Iraqbodycount.org data sources. Read how they collect the information.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/about/methods/2
Hi Candida,
I found this report. This explains the other and more believable side of this story. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/609902...
Averages out to around 650 per day every day.
Somebody should have caught it.
Actually there are a lot of *dead* reporters out there...
Yes, and that is just among the MSM reporters who have never been near a war zone.
a he!! of a lot more MSM reporters have seen war zones than ANY1 in the Bush admin.
That was not supporting Bush, it was busting on the style of most reporters.
"What the National Journal adds is that the Lancet study was funded by billionaire George Soros's Open Society Institute"
Soros again! I'm shocked I tell you shocked!
Would it be fair to call Soros the "puppet" master?
Oh wait what would that make Moveon and co. be?
Yeah, Soros makes the earth spin into night every day, too.
So many would dismiss Murdoch's rag... unless it fingerpaints and crayons out a story like this. Likewise so many far to the right of intelligence would have never trusted ANYTHING the UN put forward, instead choosing to march goosestepping behind their "diplomat" John Bolton. But now, the UN is trustworthy, and well worth listening to.
Lancet versus Murdoch? Let's just say the Lancet has a peer-review system in place, and they would certainly publish anything that could prove the study they published to be misleading.
The Lancet stands as truth, Murdoch stands as a purveyor of BS. Glad to see who's been EATING IT UP!!!
LOL. The Lancet editor admits that they bypassed their vaunted peer review process so that they could get the results out before the 2006 election.
Now that's what I call fair & balanced!
You know I find it very interesting that neocons can parrot back information like abortion statistics and the number of Kurds Saddam supposedly gassed, etc but they couldn't care less about getting an accurate count of the number of babies we've bombed and shot up in Iraq. You have no freaking idea how many people have been killed whose deaths probably haven't been documented and you really don't care. All you care about is trying to minimize the disgraceful illegal and murderous invasion of a country that NEVER attacked us and had no WMD. Bobo, I'm sorry to tell you but there is nothing you neocons can do to salvage your chimpy hero's legacy of earth shattering failure and destruction of our planet. Keep cheerleading from the sidelines all you want. Bush will still go down as the WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY.
Whatever helps you sleep at night meso.
Well, no....Think about it. That's pretty much world consensus, tang. It's not just me. It's not just liberals. It's not just most of America. Across the globe that's the consensus. Deal with reality, baby.
we'll never know WHAT lets those that support Duh-bya and this war sleep at night...
maybe its the ability to deny/rationalize/justify ANYTHING, so long as its done by a republican.
maybe its the ability to just NOT CARE as long as its not 100,000 americans dying.
maybe its just that typical conservative family value that goes "i got mine, so scr@w every1 else"
Not even close pal. I sleep well at night because I know that we are doing the right thing. Yes, and the sad thing is that you lefties would rather 100,000 Americans die. You have some in your party that feel we deserved 9/11. As for the "screw everyone else" line, close, but again no cigars. It's more like, "I worked hard for everything I have, so I refuse to give it to someone who wont."
FYI Meso, the vast majority of dead babies and other innocents are the product of Islamofascist warriors from the Religion of Peace killing the co-religionists.
Your hate for your fellow Americans is palpable.
BoBo in Texas
FYI Meso, the vast majority of dead babies and other innocents are the product of Islamofascist warriors from the Religion of Peace killing the co-religionists.
Your hate for your fellow Americans is palpable.
BoBo you wants to justify your master Bush, and his war as a just one, this is in fact a crime that God will not forgive America. You are a man without any principle, just want to suck Bush and his Nazi policies. He started this war with other greedy Iraqi politicians and then blame so called Islamofascism. There is no such thing as Islamofascism anywhere in the world ever existed,and fascism has no place in Islam. Only fascism that exists in theworld today is American fascism, Israeli fascism and the British fascism. Everybody has the right to defend their land. Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine part of which is fascist Israel today, it survives and thrives by the fascist American support.
"fascism has no place in Islam"
Uhm daylight, you might want to look that up. Most of the Arab countries were aligned with the Nazis. There was even a "special" Iranian SS corps.
Ba'ath Party, or The Arab Socialist Ba'th Party is based on the NAZI's
Oh gee, BoBo...Last time I checked, we were still the country with a military machine that dwarfs those of several other countries combined and you're criticizing the entire religion of Islam because of what a minority of people are doing? Amazing...Maybe you should worry less about "Islamofascists" and more about the fascists in the Bush administration who are illegally eavesdropping on your phone conversations and spying on Quakers.
Just in case you missed it, the Islamofascists killed over 3,000 Americans. They also like to stone to death gays and subugate women.
Of course to a real Progressive those are trivial matters.
"Just in case you missed it, the Islamofascists killed over 3,000 Americans. They also like to stone to death gays and subugate women."
Bush killed over 3,000 Americans and don't get me started on gays and women. In fact, don't tell me you don't tune into Fox News each day for minute by minute coverage of this month's missing (i.e. soon to be found dead) pretty white girl of the moment. We have nothing to brag about as a country in that regard and we sure as hell have no business invading other countries and forcing them to emulate us. Get a grip...
Can you grasp the difference between a country that holds people that kill gays and women, and a country that actively supports killing gays and women?
We show it on the news because it is news, not norm.