39,000 Iraqis killed in fighting, new study finds

[sabra]

<<SNIP>>
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N11220315.htm

39,000 Iraqis killed in fighting, new study finds

Source: Reuters

UNITED NATIONS, July 11 (Reuters) - Some 39,000 Iraqis have been killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since the U.S.-led invasion, a figure considerably higher than previous estimates, a Swiss institute reported on Monday.

The public database Iraqi Body Count, by comparison, estimates that between 22,787 and 25,814 Iraqi civilians have died since the March 2003 invasion, based on reports from at least two media sources.

No official estimates of Iraqi casualties from the war have been issued, although military deaths from the U.S.-led coalition forces are closely tracked and now total 1,937.

The new estimate was compiled by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies and published in its latest annual small arms survey, released at a U.N. news conference.

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[gWbush is Mabus]

1. that is waaaay understated

i've heard 100,000-200,000

[staticstopper]

4. I hope the first set is true

I can't seem to quit grieving over this.

How many times do they have a large number killed with a car bomb?
2 or three times a week?

Please God, make it stop!

Every time I read a report of another car bomb, a small part inside me gives out.

[Barrett808]

8. Then Lancet study put the figure at just under 100,000

And stated that this is a conservative figure. Most died as a result of US aerial bombing.

[rinsd]

9. Yeah they cited a 95% certainty that it was between 8,000 and 192,000...

...might as well use a dart board.

[Barrett808]

10. Disagree -- check out this analysis

The confidence interval describes a range of values which are “consistent” with the model<1>. But it doesn’t mean that all values within the confidence interval are equally likely, so you can just pick one. In particular, the most likely values are the ones in the centre of a symmetrical confidence interval. The single most likely value is, in fact, the central estimate of 98,000 excess deaths. Furthermore, as I pointed out in my original CT post, the truly shocking thing is that, wide as the confidence interval is, it does not include zero. You would expect to get a sample like this fewer than 2.5 times out of a hundred if the true number of excess deaths was less than zero (that is, if the war had made things better rather than worse). -- "Lancet roundup and literature review", http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002858.html

[Igel]

12. That's true, and that's what 95% confidence level means:

95 times out of a 100 they expect the numbers to fall between 8k and 192k (or whatever the figure cited was, assuming it was accurately quoted).

If you want to narrow the range in which you think the value falls, you can: but then you have less and less confidence that the actual value is within your interval. The most likely value is the center of what's assumed to be a normal distribution (the usual bell curve shape), but it's only trivially more likely than the values adjacent to it. There's also no guarantee that the assumptions leading to the nice bell curve are right.

So is it more likely to be 100k than 99k? Sure. Do we have much confidence at all that it's actually 100k? Nope. That it's between 95k-105k? Again, probably not.

If you want to be 99% sure you've gotten the actual value in your interval, then you're need an interval even greater than 8-192k. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised that at the 99% confidence levelthey wouldn't start including the possibility of fewer deaths than expected. But 95% confidence is standard for most things (and is, really, the minimum that's used in some fields; we all like 99% confidence when we can get it and still have a small interval).

Oh. And what you posted wasn't an analysis. It's merely a statement of what the stats mean.

[Barrett808]

13. I think it's fair to call the whole piece an "analysis"

Everyone should read it, to counter trivial conservative criticisms of the Lancet study.

[sintax]

2. How many dead due to war related hunger?

Due to war induced disease?

Due to war related stress?

ETC ETC ETC

Bush -Clinton -Bush: War-Sanctions-War: all have to answer to the hunger related deaths in Mesopotamia. Thousands and thousands and thousands

[sabra]

3. yep

are the bombings included too? they need to define "combat"

[sintax]

5. how many children

have had their lives destroyed? Will turn to prostitution as capitalism comes to the Tigris?

How about depression? How about the toxic legacy? How about the destruction of farmland?

Thousands and thousands and thousands....

Who voted for this War?

Who continues to fund it?

They too are responsible.

The Inferno

[staticstopper]

6. but i'm not going to let them

change me into one of those ppl who say, "why bother, it's all a bunch of crap - all politicians are liars"

I'm going to force myself to keep up with current afairs no matter how horrid it is.

[NNN0LHI]

7. My goodness, what are we doing with all the bodies? n/t

[daleo]

11. This builds on the Lancet estimate

"It builds on a study published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, last October, which concluded there had been 100,000 "excess deaths" in Iraq from all causes since March 2003. That figure was derived by conducting surveys of Iraqi mortality data during the war and comparing the results to similar data collected before the war.
...
The Swiss institute said it arrived at its estimate of Iraqi deaths resulting solely from either combat or armed violence by re-examining the raw data gathered for the Lancet study and classifying the cause of death when it could."

So, this is the number of the excess deaths reported in the Lancet survey as being directly due to bombs and bullets. Many others would have died from lack of sanitation, heat, water, destruction of medical infrastructure (and thus death from otherwise curable disease), hunger, and the other fallout of war.

It is interesting that it lines up fairly closely with the Iraqbodycount data for deaths directly attributable to warfare.

I wonder if either count includes the Iraqi soldiers killed in the invasion phase of the war?

[alfredo]

14. their blood is on bush's hands.

How can he not face war crimes for this?