Complete 25 Page Report From The Lancet On Iraq Death Totals

[Jcrowley]

Go CSMonitor link below and click hyperlink at the words "a study" which I've put in bold to see entire 25 page report:

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and the Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, in cooperation with Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have released a study that says more than 655,000 Iraqis have died in Iraq following the US-led invasion of that country.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1012/dailyUpdate.html


At link below listen to the podcast:

The Lancet - October 14 2006  (mp3, 5.17Mb)
This week's podcast discusses the research article and comment documenting 650,000 excess deaths in Iraq since the 2003 conflict started. Richard Lane and Lancet Editor Richard Horton discuss the media and political reaction to the story; one of the study authors Gilbert Burnham explains the methodology behind the research.

http://podcast.thelancet.com/audio/lancet/2006/9544_14october.mp3

A snip from the 25 page report:
Methods The surveyors from the School of Medicine of Al Mustansirya University in Baghdad conducted a national survey between May and July 2006.In this survey,sites were collected according to the population size and the geographic distribution in Iraq.The survey included 16 of the 18 governates in Iraq, with larger population areas having more sample sites.The sites were selected entirely at random,so all households had an equal chance of being included.The survey used a standard cluster survey method, which is a recommended method for measuring deaths in conflict situations.The survey team visited 50 randomly selected sites in Iraq,and at each site interviewed 40 households about deaths which had occurred from January 1,2002,until the date of the interview in July 2006.We selected this time frame to compare results with our previous survey,which covered the period between January 2002 and September 2004.In all,information was collected from 1,849 households completing the survey, containing 12,801 persons.This sample size was selected to be able to statistically detect death rates with 95% probability of obtaining the correct result.When the preliminary results were reviewed,it was apparent that three clusters were misattributed.These were dropped from the data for analysis,giving a final total of 47 clusters,which are the basis of this study.

[fooj]

1. Thanks for the info...

I always read your threads. Very informative. :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[wiley]

2. Really interesting and brutally direct study

What can be debated? Well, I estimate only 567,990 have been killed according to the following clusters?

[Kierkegaard]

3. There's no debate.

By using simple Repellentcon math, 655,000 = 30,000.
Net job loss = booming economy.
Lies = truth.

Ad infinitum...

[leftchick]

4. even with these FACTS

it will never find credibility in the M$M. :grr:

Thank you for the truth.

[Evergreen Emerald]

5. we should e-mail this to the Sunday talk shows

And request that they not allow the neo-cons to dismiss summarily as "not credible" without detailing the reasons they do not consider it credible.

[me b zola]

6. k&r #5

[Igel]

7. A couple of interesting points.

The really interesting point is that non-violent deaths weren't found to increase over 2002 levels until mid 2005. What changed such that non-violent deaths should increase this year, what was different from 2004 and 2005? Water? Electricity?

On the other hand, they say this may not be a (statistically) significant increase. Still, that's responsible for about 1/13 of the estimated excess deaths.

Now, the percentage of deaths attributed to the coalition is based upon the families' certainty. This leads to an interesting question: in a gun battle between the US and members of a militia, are the families who's members die more or less likely to say "I don't know", "the militia killed him/her", or "the Americans killed him/her"? If you know that the militia is likely to be clansmen (your own or a rival clan) or co-religionists, to say the militia killed your son is to declare blood vengeance is obligatory or say a co-religionist violated the local code for Islamic conduct: honor is in play. If you know the militia was the opposing group, which is preferable: attribute uncertain deaths to the militia or the Americans? And remember that the coalition pays for the deaths that the coalition causes. There's unmeasurable uncertainty in this portion of the data. (The same kind of dispute, but at a much more reduced level, is when asking people to recollect if their family member died in 2002 or the chaos of 2003.)

An issue the researchers acknowledge--it's so obvious they had to, to be taken seriously--is the issue of base population numbers in each area. An Iraqi ministry estimated these numbers. The numbers may be wrong, or internal migration after a death might skew the numbers. This is quantifiable, but only with difficulty, and might not be statistically useful information. But the 2006 and 2004 numbers are reasonably in agreement, and the confidence interval for the 2006 numbers has been tightened up (although not for the breakout numbers).

I would have liked to see graphs/charts of the excess deaths per region over time (both overall and for just deaths attributed to the coalition), and for each age group for each time period. This would have said something interesting--albeit with lowered confidence--about the causes of the excess deaths, and their distribution.

As for the * administration's comments and those of the researchers, the difference isn't primarily one of asserting different facts as asserting different definitions of 'responsible.'

[illflem]

9. igil,

the rise in non-violent deaths in 2005 is probably attributed to slow to kill diseases as a result of poor sanitation caused by the US invasion.

[Igel]

10. Most of the diseases from bad sanitation aren't *that* slow to kill.

Cholera, dysentery, and the like; moreover, they usually kill wee kids, but in this case the numbers suggest that's not the case--but no more than suggest, because there's no way to tease out the actual numbers. Parasites might take longer, however. That's one reason I'd like to see the breakout by area. You can never include too much data in an article; I wonder if the Lancet includes more details ... I'll have to try to look at it when I have time.

Even the use of DU has to be considered--except that I'm not sure how quickly heavy metal poisoning would take its toll.

This isn't an attempt to discredit the report. It's an attempt to understand it and any shortcomings; to take a report seriously is to question its data and methods, find its limitations and where further research could go. For all I know the researchers tried to do what I'd like to have seen them do, and the results were pointless.

[Jcrowley]

11. Here's my take

The first point regards the methodology and without question it is rock solid and to date, it's early, there have been no refutations from statisticians or academics concerning the methodologies. In fact knowing what we know about the group of folks who attached there names to it they would not have allowed the report to see the light of day if the methodology wasn't water tight. Now to the results.

Despite using the same proven and trusted methodology that does not necessarily equate with a similarly accurate result from place to place and time to time. This is also widely acknowledged by the very same people who put out this study. However it serves to give us a baseline for some real casualty figures and discussion about that. Anyone who has been watching the daily wire for the last three years doesn't need a study to know the figures at Iraq Body Count, e.g. are absurdly low.

My personal view, and again this is just my opinion, is that the figure of 655,000 is a little high and the actual death toll is nearer to the bottom range of their estimate, say 400,000.

Two further points the first being that then we get into the details of numbers which I don't care for and obscures the greater reality of the daily atrocities visited upon the people of Iraq at the hands of the US military.

Lastly I think the figures will ultimately prove not be up to the real toll as they are fixed in a point in time and cannot account for the generational consequences of this genocide.

Whatever the case War Crimes by any measure.

[Jcrowley]

12. Policy Implications of High Mortality

Policy Implications of High Mortality

The large scale of mortality during the Iraq war has implications for how the war is being conducted by the United States.While not within the scope of the survey itself,it is worth raising a few points and questions relevant to political and military policies,strategy,and tactics.

• The overall scale of death from the beginning of the war,and the constant rise in mortality,clearly demonstrates that the United States and other legitimate armed forces are not adequately providing security,and indeed that everyday insecurity is increasing for most Iraqis.

• Large numbers of noncombatants are dying as a direct consequence of the violence.

• The violence and insecurity throughout the period of the survey could be creating a feedback loop in which greater insecurity leads to greater violence.Insurgents may believe they are acting to protect their families and communities,for example.The American application of force may be a stimulant to more insurgency;recent doctrinal changes in the army reportedly recognize this.

• The overall scale of violence and the large representation of young men in the mortality figures may indicate a much larger insurgency and/or membership in militias than is widely estimated.

• Quite a significant portion of violence is occurring outside Baghdad,even though the capital is the focal point of attention for U.S.security strategy.

• An apparently high prevalence of assassinations,and their growth,underscores how little is known about the militias and insurgencies,and what strategies or tactics could be put into place to reduce this violence.

[malaise]

8. Thanks for this

He must be referring to the British media.