Wednesday, January 11, 2006
How Many Iraqis Have Died Since the US Invasion in 2003?
from Andrew Cockburn - CounterPunch.org - January 9, 2006
President Bush's off-hand summation last month of the number of Iraqis who have so far died as a result of our invasion and occupation as "30,000, more or less" was quite certainly an under-estimate. The true number is probably hitting around 180,000 by now.
But even Bush's number was too much for his handlers to allow. Almost as soon as he finished speaking, they hastened to downplay the presidential figure as "unofficial", plucked by the commander in chief from "public estimates".
In fact, the President may have been subconsciously quoting figures published by iraqbodycount.org, a British group that diligently tabulates published press reports of combat-related killings in Iraq. As the group itself readily concedes, the estimate must be incomplete, since it omits unreported deaths.
There is however another and more reliable method for estimating figures such as these: nationwide random sampling.
Random sampling is how market researchers assess public opinion on everything from politicians to breakfast cereals. Epidemiologists use it to chart the impact of epidemics. In 2000 an epidemiological team led by Les Roberts of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health used random sampling to calculate the death toll from the ongoing Congolese civil war at 1.7 million. This figure prompted immediate action by the UN Security Council. No one questioned the methodology.
In September 2004, Roberts led a similar team that researched death rates, using the same techniques, in Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion. Making "conservative assumptions" they concluded that 98,000 among men, women, and children had occurred in just under eighteen months. Violent deaths alone had soared twentyfold. But, as in most wars, the bulk of the carnage was due to the indirect effects of the invasion, notably the breakdown of the Iraqi health system.
The general outrage over this figure may have been prompted by the unsettling possibility that Iraq's liberators may have had already killed a third as many Iraqis as the reported 300,000 murdered by Saddam Hussein in his decades of tyranny.
Furthermore, CounterPunch's consultant statistician, Pierre Sprey, said that, assuming the rate of death has proceeded at the same pace since the study was carried out fifteen months ago, the deaths inflicted to date as a direct result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq could be, at best estimate, 183,000.
(Editor's note ... These figures demonstrate the absurd hypocrisy of the 'Religious Right' pro-lifers supporting President Bush. Apparently, it's wrong to kill American 'babies', but it's OK to kill Iraqi babies.)
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from Andrew Cockburn - CounterPunch.org - January 9, 2006
President Bush's off-hand summation last month of the number of Iraqis who have so far died as a result of our invasion and occupation as "30,000, more or less" was quite certainly an under-estimate. The true number is probably hitting around 180,000 by now.
But even Bush's number was too much for his handlers to allow. Almost as soon as he finished speaking, they hastened to downplay the presidential figure as "unofficial", plucked by the commander in chief from "public estimates".
In fact, the President may have been subconsciously quoting figures published by iraqbodycount.org, a British group that diligently tabulates published press reports of combat-related killings in Iraq. As the group itself readily concedes, the estimate must be incomplete, since it omits unreported deaths.
There is however another and more reliable method for estimating figures such as these: nationwide random sampling.
Random sampling is how market researchers assess public opinion on everything from politicians to breakfast cereals. Epidemiologists use it to chart the impact of epidemics. In 2000 an epidemiological team led by Les Roberts of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health used random sampling to calculate the death toll from the ongoing Congolese civil war at 1.7 million. This figure prompted immediate action by the UN Security Council. No one questioned the methodology.
In September 2004, Roberts led a similar team that researched death rates, using the same techniques, in Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion. Making "conservative assumptions" they concluded that 98,000 among men, women, and children had occurred in just under eighteen months. Violent deaths alone had soared twentyfold. But, as in most wars, the bulk of the carnage was due to the indirect effects of the invasion, notably the breakdown of the Iraqi health system.
The general outrage over this figure may have been prompted by the unsettling possibility that Iraq's liberators may have had already killed a third as many Iraqis as the reported 300,000 murdered by Saddam Hussein in his decades of tyranny.
Furthermore, CounterPunch's consultant statistician, Pierre Sprey, said that, assuming the rate of death has proceeded at the same pace since the study was carried out fifteen months ago, the deaths inflicted to date as a direct result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq could be, at best estimate, 183,000.
(Editor's note ... These figures demonstrate the absurd hypocrisy of the 'Religious Right' pro-lifers supporting President Bush. Apparently, it's wrong to kill American 'babies', but it's OK to kill Iraqi babies.)
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