The-Hogs.net - Washington Football Discussion, Redskins to Commanders Era

Along with the thousands of American deaths and crippling injuries, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal will publish tomorrow a report by the Bloomsberg Group of Johns Hopkins that 600,000 Iraqis have been killed in Iraq during the current war.

Saddam was credited with killing 290, 000 over a twenty year period. If the report is correct, the four year war has been more than ten times as barbarous as the reign of Saddam Houssein.

Would you like to post some links to the figure of 290,000 that you have for Saddam's reign?

Do you assume that those 600,000 deaths were caused soley by U.S. actions?

Here is the link to a report that list the figure of 655,000 casualties.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061011/ap_ ... death_toll

Notice these quotes:

A controversial new study contends nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war, suggesting a far higher death toll than other estimates.

The timing of the survey's release, just a few weeks before the U.S. congressional elections, led one expert to call it "politics."

Their conclusion, based on interviews of households and not a body count, is that about 600,000 died from violence, mostly gunfire.

An accurate count of Iraqi deaths has been difficult to obtain, but one respected group puts its rough estimate at closer to 50,000. And at least one expert was skeptical of the new findings.

"They're almost certainly way too high," said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. He criticized the way the estimate was derived and noted that the results were released shortly before the Nov. 7 election.

"This is not analysis, this is politics," Cordesman said.

Dr. Gilbert Burnham is the author of the findings. Its interesting to not that just two years ago at this same time he published a report saying that there were 100,000 civilian deaths. Why would I bring this up? Because its right before a voting cycle.....just like the last time Dr. Burnhams name came up in the press.....right before an election cycle. Is Dr. Burnham so outraged by the loss of life that he only complains in the fall of even numbered years? Its also iteresting to note that the 2004 study tried to link the 100,000 civilian deaths directly to the invasion and aerial bombardment of civilian areas, especially at the onset of the invasion. I would expect those numbers to be surprisingly high, even though government counts were more like 10,000 to 25,000. But exactly two years later, when we have had limited aerial operations the death toll has risen by 550,000?!?!?? Seems that since 100,000 wasn't enough to win seats in the last elevtion Dr. Burnham is going with a higher number to invoke a greater response.

Here is the actual report.
http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/image ... 694919.pdf

Here is the link to an article about the the 2004 report.
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/ ... N=73224205
Notice the date.

Chad

chaddukes wrote:Would you like to post some links to the figure of 290,000 that you have for Saddam's reign?

Do you assume that those 600,000 deaths were caused soley by U.S. actions?

Here is the link to a report that list the figure of 655,000 casualties.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061011/ap_ ... death_toll

Notice these quotes:

A controversial new study contends nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war, suggesting a far higher death toll than other estimates.

The timing of the survey's release, just a few weeks before the U.S. congressional elections, led one expert to call it "politics."

Their conclusion, based on interviews of households and not a body count, is that about 600,000 died from violence, mostly gunfire.

An accurate count of Iraqi deaths has been difficult to obtain, but one respected group puts its rough estimate at closer to 50,000. And at least one expert was skeptical of the new findings.

"They're almost certainly way too high," said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. He criticized the way the estimate was derived and noted that the results were released shortly before the Nov. 7 election.

"This is not analysis, this is politics," Cordesman said.

Dr. Gilbert Burnham is the author of the findings. Its interesting to not that just two years ago at this same time he published a report saying that there were 100,000 civilian deaths. Why would I bring this up? Because its right before a voting cycle.....just like the last time Dr. Burnhams name came up in the press.....right before an election cycle. Is Dr. Burnham so outraged by the loss of life that he only complains in the fall of even numbered years? Its also iteresting to note that the 2004 study tried to link the 100,000 civilian deaths directly to the invasion and aerial bombardment of civilian areas, especially at the onset of the invasion. I would expect those numbers to be surprisingly high, even though government counts were more like 10,000 to 25,000. But exactly two years later, when we have had limited aerial operations the death toll has risen by 550,000?!?!?? Seems that since 100,000 wasn't enough to win seats in the last elevtion Dr. Burnham is going with a higher number to invoke a greater response.

Here is the actual report.
http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/image ... 694919.pdf

Here is the link to an article about the the 2004 report.
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/ ... N=73224205
Notice the date.

Chad

Your criticism of the report might seem more impartial if Tommy Franks hadn't already dissed the lower figures you mentioned and you had bothered to be up front with how other death estimates have been made. Here's a note on that you choose to ignore from the article you read.

"Speaking of the new study, Burnham said the estimate was much higher than others because it was derived from a house-to-house survey rather than approaches that depend on body counts or media reports.

A private group called Iraqi Body Count, for example, says it has recorded about 44,000 to 49,000 civilian Iraqi deaths. But it notes that those totals are based on media reports, which it says probably overlook "many if not most civilian casualties."

For Burnham's study, researchers gathered data from a sample of 1,849 Iraqi households with a total of 12,801 residents from late May to early July. That sample was used to extrapolate the total figure. The estimate deals with deaths up to July.

The survey participants attributed about 31 percent of violent deaths to coalition forces.

Accurate death tolls have been difficult to obtain ever since the Iraq conflict began in March 2003. When top Iraqi political officials cite death numbers, they often refuse to say where the numbers came from.

The Health Ministry, which tallies civilian deaths, relies on reports from government hospitals and morgues. The Interior Ministry compiles its figures from police stations, while the Defense Ministry reports deaths only among army soldiers and insurgents killed in combat."


In your presumed desire to be fair, you might also have mentioned that a random sample group of 1500 is considered by statistics experts to yield only a three percent margin of error either way (plus or minus 3), whereas body counts from media reports or scattered morques and police stations in a non-functioning country have no scientific reliably at all.

The Johns Hopkins study, in fact, is the only scientific study made. Stats made on a random sampling of 12,000 people approaches zero in relation to margin of error,

As for the notion that Dr. Burnham is partisan, motivated by politics, and out there on his own, that is typical apologist rhetoric. Burnham didn't conduct the survey, he wrote the conclusions of the whole Bloomsburg group at Johns Hopkins, one of the most respected organizations in the United States.

If Johns Hopkins had held back the completed report until after the election for the sake of politics, that would have been reprehensible. Releasing relevant on-hand materials before elections is the reponsibility of every American research institution and news bureau. We should operate in the light, not the dark, no matter whom we do or do not support.

If WMD's are found in Iraq tommorow, that too should be reported.

Your demanding a link for the Saddam death toll is both insincere and a typical ad hominem attack, the number being generally known (check Raw Story and any other sites), the implication being that I made the figure up or derived it by some inferior means. All of which is very much akin to how you have responded to the report and its author and by extention to Johns Hopkins.

Your question about my assuming the deaths of 600,000 Iraqi being caused by "U.S. actions" is perhaps deliberately unanswerable. If you are asking if we directly killed all those people, the answer is No. If you mean did we cause the deaths by invading Iraq, the answer is Yes.

I would think you would be a bit more concerned about the probable or even possible deaths of well over half a million people than you are. Instead of trying to get to the bottom of it, you've apparently slipped into denial mode and attempted to discredit the messenger. Well, this time the messenger comes from one of the most respected research ggroups in the world. Maybe Karen Hughes knows better, or Dick Cheney and his minions are more to be trusted. Good luck.

Extrapolation seems like a flawed way to do this type of survey. I don't know how many civilians have died, but I would guess a good number of them have died because of suicide bombers and terrorist activity, so even if there is 600,000 dead, I doubt that their deaths can be attributed soley to the US forces.

crazyhorse1 wrote:In your presumed desire to be fair, you might also have mentioned that a random sample group of 1500 is considered by statistics experts to yield only a three percent margin of error either way (plus or minus 3), whereas body counts from media reports or scattered morques and police stations in a non-functioning country have no scientific reliably at all.

The Johns Hopkins study, in fact, is the only scientific study made. Stats made on a random sampling of 12,000 people approaches zero in relation to margin of error,

As for the notion that Dr. Burnham is partisan, motivated by politics, and out there on his own, that is typical apologist rhetoric. Burnham didn't conduct the survey, he wrote the conclusions of the whole Bloomsburg group at Johns Hopkins, one of the most respected organizations in the United States.

Dr. Burnham was the lead analyst and the writer of the report. Its safe to say that the research was done under his direction.

Listening to his speech on C-span today Dr. Burnham lists the margin of error as being anywhere between 340,000 to 980,000......That doesn't sound list a 3% margin of error to me.

Jansenfan is right extrapolating these figures isn't a good way to arrive at this kind of data. You can misrepresent what I and others say. I'm just trying to present the other side. You assert these stories as if they are undeniable fact. I'm just letting people know that they aren't......no apologetics here.

Chad

JansenFan wrote:Extrapolation seems like a flawed way to do this type of survey. I don't know how many civilians have died, but I would guess a good number of them have died because of suicide bombers and terrorist activity, so even if there is 600,000 dead, I doubt that their deaths can be attributed soley to the US forces.

I'm not sure I understand... extrapolation is pretty much the only way to do a study like this.

I mean, you can question if the sample is really random (how could it possibly be in Iraq with the current state of affairs?) but I don't see extrapolation as being the problem.

Also, I think CH's point is that these deaths are related to our "invasion". If we never would have gone into Iraq then there wouldn't be the same level terrorist activity...

Of course, when both sides have a set agenda it's hard to have any meaningful reports surface.

I think extrapolaion doesn't work BECAUSE of the inability to find a meaningful sample. As for CH's point, it is based on figures that are suspect, at best. We may never know how many civilians have been killed, and I also don't think that insurgents and/or terrorist killing civilians can be placed on the US troops. Sure, they wouldn't likely be there if the US wasn't, but it is still the decision of the insurgents and/or terrorists to blow up civilians.

I think this study is suspect at best but I don't think (based on the BBC interview I heard this morning) they are counting strictly coalition-caused deaths

Well, if the war has achieved nothing else, it does seem to have provided meaningless employment for a number of out of work statisticians.

Well, if the war has achieved nothing else, it does seem to have provided meaningless employment for a number of out of work statisticians.

Exactly... and there is a reason why they were out of work in the first place.

Here's a few thoughts from Donald Gooch. I think he raises some interesting questions. Much the same questions that I had when I looked at the study.

http://burkeophilia.blogspot.com/2006/1 ... study.html

Donald Gooch writes:

1. A one year period prior to the invasion was chosen for the pre-invasion period comparison baseline in the study. Why was this interval chosen? Note that this is a period with a coalition enforced no-fly zone in effect. Would a different interval have produced a different mortality rate? For example, what about one that included post-Gulf War reprisals? This is very significant. The pre-invasion mortality rate is integral to calculating the number of deaths attributable to the war in Iraq. Higher pre-invasion mortality rate, fewer deaths attributed to the war. And note, they get their estimate of the pre-invasion mortality rate from their sample. So a household is asked about deaths from each of the periods. They may be underestimating the deaths in the earliest period simply because it was so long ago.

2. I think there is a fundamental question as to whether this baseline-comparison model is appropriate for assessing the impact of the war on the number of deaths in Iraq. It is very sensitive to the baseline selected as well as the variance in deaths across clusters. While the authors acknowledge several possible sources of systematic bias in their sample (i.e. the possibility of over-sampling
higher-mortality clusters as a result of population migration), I don't think they appreciate just how much of an effect that could have on their estimates. Their method does not and cannot account for the
essential non-randomness of warfare. Coalition forces do not drop bombs randomly. Insurgents do not plant IED's or car-bombs randomly. As such their sample may be severely biased by the fact that individuals living in Iraq make rational decisions to move away from hot-spots when able to do so. Fewer people in the household means a higher mortality rate.

3. Why was no effort made to distinguish combatants from non-combatants? I understand that there is concern for risk to the interviewers (as stated in the article), but this is pretty important. The authors argue that this is the "this the deadliest international conflict of the 21st century" and that they have urged investigation into the "excess" mortality rate in Iraq. But what if a large percentage of that "excess" is, in fact, coalition forces killing insurgents? From a policy perspective, there doesn't seem to be much logic in treating the death of an innocent child from an IED the same as the death of the terrorist planting the IED at the hands of coalition forces...yet that is exactly what the study does. Note the study acknowledges that "Across Iraq, deaths and injuries from violent causes were concentrated in adolescent to middle age men." The exact population from which combatants are drawn.

Seriously CH1 use your common sense.

Lets just for the sake of argument agree that this study is accurate... lets look at it in perspective.

The US death rate is 8 per 1,000 population
(Source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm).

The UK is 10 per 1,000. According to the study, Iraq's post-invasion death rate is 13.2 per 1,000.

Take a look at this list of countries;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... death_rate

Notice some pretty high mortality rates for some of those countries??

Cameroon has a similar birth and death rate to Iraq is also around 13. This means that the horrible crisis in Iraq is about the same as many other countries. If you believe the study then you must also acknowledge that the violence in Iraq is not anymore destructive in terms of the human toll than some countries in Africa that are currently dealing with AIDS epidemics.

Gee even Russia has a mortality rate of 14 (1 more than Iraq). Guess we caused that too huh ??

thaiphoon wrote:

Well, if the war has achieved nothing else, it does seem to have provided meaningless employment for a number of out of work statisticians.

Exactly... and there is a reason why they were out of work in the first place.

Here's a few thoughts from Donald Gooch. I think he raises some interesting questions. Much the same questions that I had when I looked at the study.

http://burkeophilia.blogspot.com/2006/1 ... study.html

Donald Gooch writes:



1. A one year period prior to the invasion was chosen for the pre-invasion period comparison baseline in the study. Why was this interval chosen? Note that this is a period with a coalition enforced no-fly zone in effect. Would a different interval have produced a different mortality rate? For example, what about one that included post-Gulf War reprisals? This is very significant. The pre-invasion mortality rate is integral to calculating the number of deaths attributable to the war in Iraq. Higher pre-invasion mortality rate, fewer deaths attributed to the war. And note, they get their estimate of the pre-invasion mortality rate from their sample. So a household is asked about deaths from each of the periods. They may be underestimating the deaths in the earliest period simply because it was so long ago.

2. I think there is a fundamental question as to whether this baseline-comparison model is appropriate for assessing the impact of the war on the number of deaths in Iraq. It is very sensitive to the baseline selected as well as the variance in deaths across clusters. While the authors acknowledge several possible sources of systematic bias in their sample (i.e. the possibility of over-sampling
higher-mortality clusters as a result of population migration), I don't think they appreciate just how much of an effect that could have on their estimates. Their method does not and cannot account for the
essential non-randomness of warfare. Coalition forces do not drop bombs randomly. Insurgents do not plant IED's or car-bombs randomly. As such their sample may be severely biased by the fact that individuals living in Iraq make rational decisions to move away from hot-spots when able to do so. Fewer people in the household means a higher mortality rate.

3. Why was no effort made to distinguish combatants from non-combatants? I understand that there is concern for risk to the interviewers (as stated in the article), but this is pretty important. The authors argue that this is the "this the deadliest international conflict of the 21st century" and that they have urged investigation into the "excess" mortality rate in Iraq. But what if a large percentage of that "excess" is, in fact, coalition forces killing insurgents? From a policy perspective, there doesn't seem to be much logic in treating the death of an innocent child from an IED the same as the death of the terrorist planting the IED at the hands of coalition forces...yet that is exactly what the study does. Note the study acknowledges that "Across Iraq, deaths and injuries from violent causes were concentrated in adolescent to middle age men." The exact population from which combatants are drawn.

Seriously CH1 use your common sense.

Lets just for the sake of argument agree that this study is accurate... lets look at it in perspective.

The US death rate is 8 per 1,000 population
(Source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm).

The UK is 10 per 1,000. According to the study, Iraq's post-invasion death rate is 13.2 per 1,000.

Take a look at this list of countries;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... death_rate

Notice some pretty high mortality rates for some of those countries??

Cameroon has a similar birth and death rate to Iraq is also around 13. This means that the horrible crisis in Iraq is about the same as many other countries. If you believe the study then you must also acknowledge that the violence in Iraq is not anymore destructive in terms of the human toll than some countries in Africa that are currently dealing with AIDS epidemics.

Gee even Russia has a mortality rate of 14 (1 more than Iraq). Guess we caused that too huh ??

Zogby has just backed up the Johns Hopkins poll and commented that previous body counts have come from just a few cities, not the whole country. Here's the Zogby story:

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Video ... _1011.html

Your explanation would be fine if it were not for the fact that Iraq's expected death rate jumped up almost one hundred thousand per year during its war years with the U.S.

We now know that a quarter of a million Iragi's lost their lives in the first Gulf war, which lasted a very short time. That figure, by the way, was suppressed by our government until long after the war, when it was finally admitted.

Since this war has lasted much more than twice as long as the first one, it makes sense that this one has killed more than twice as many people.

If you add the several million people that died in excess of expectation during the Clinton years (because of embargoes and destroyed infrastructure), you'll see that the U.S. has had a hand in well over a million Iraqi deaths, hundreds of thousands of those being the deaths of women and children.

We've turned Iraq into a killing field, just as we did Cambodia; just as Darfur has been turned into a killing field by yet another bully. The first Bush can be excused, because the first war was started by Iraqi aggression; Clinton had some cause because it was necessary to disarm Iraq. George W., however, cannot be excused by any rationale in that his war with Iraq was a pure uncalled for invasion of a country based on lies.

If George W.'s war is not stopped until he is out of office, his personal
responsibily could be for as many as a million Iragi deaths and a probable four to five thousand American death's, as well as the permanent injury of as yet uncounted thousands of Americans.

To say that he's the worse President in American history is a wild understatement. Even with all the death and destruction he has caused, in conjunction with his damage to our image, wealth, and ecology, his primary blows to America's groin are his violations of national and international law and his attacks on the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

crazyhorse wrote:

We now know that a quarter of a million Iragi's lost their lives in the first Gulf war, which lasted a very short time. That figure, by the way, was suppressed by our government until long after the war, when it was finally admitted.

We do? Does that mean that:
1) 250,000 people died during the first Gulf War, or that;
2) 250,000 people were killed during the first Gulf War.

I don't believe either figure, but I'm curious.

UK Skins Fan wrote:crazyhorse wrote:

We now know that a quarter of a million Iragi's lost their lives in the first Gulf war, which lasted a very short time. That figure, by the way, was suppressed by our government until long after the war, when it was finally admitted.

We do? Does that mean that:
1) 250,000 people died during the first Gulf War, or that;
2) 250,000 people were killed during the first Gulf War.

I don't believe either figure, but I'm curious.

The figures are usually inclusive of people killed and the number of people who die because of disruption of services, food supply, and war caused hardships such as the closing of hospitals, etc.
Countries have fairly stable death rates when not at war or when there's no other extraordinary catastrophe. When a country is at war, it's war dead is usually said to be what is called the "excess" above the normal death rate.
The 250,000 is excess dead. After the first war the excess continued at a rate of about 100,000 a year. That would mean that approximately 150,000 were killed in the war and about a 100,000 died as a result of the war.
Natural deaths, such as by most diseases, child birth, or old age, are not a part of the 250,000 figure.

My bad. I rechecked the figures and discovered that I have made a mistake.
the final tally of dead Iraqis for the first Gulf war was 205,000, not 250,000.

Here's a statement of the facts from

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0214-03.htm

Daponte, a Middle East analyst, was assigned to come up with an estimate. She estimated that a total of 158,000 Iraqis were killed, with only 40,000 of them being soldiers in battle. The far greater death toll came afterward; Daponte estimated that 70,000 Iraqis died through easily preventable diseases that were suddenly made lingering and lethal by the bombing by the United States and its allies of water and power supplies, sewage systems, and roads.

Of the estimated 158,000 deaths, Daponte concluded that nearly 40,000 of the victims were women and 32,000 were children.

After the Associated Press ran the estimate in January 1992, Daponte was told by the Census Bureau that she was going to be fired on the basis of issuing ''false information,'' ''untrustworthiness,'' and ''unreliability.''

The Census Bureau backed down after Daponte received swift and strong support from civil libertarians and statisticians. A year later she published an even more refined report with even more grotesque numbers. In a study published in the quarterly publication of the Physicians for Social Responsibility, Daponte estimated the final death toll to be 205,500. The war itself resulted in 56,000 deaths to soldiers and 3,500 to civilians. Another 35,000 people died in internal postwar fighting. The biggest single number of deaths again was to civilians after the destruction of the nation's infrastructure: 111,000.

In Daponte's second analysis, the number of women who died from health effects of the war went down, to 16,500, but the number of children who died soared to 70,000. In addition, 8,500 senior citizens died. If that number is anywhere close to true, that means that far more Iraqi children died than Iraqi soldiers.:

Daponte, a Middle East analyst, was assigned to come up with an estimate. She estimated that a total of 158,000 Iraqis were killed, with only 40,000 of them being soldiers in battle. The far greater death toll came afterward; Daponte estimated that 70,000 Iraqis died through easily preventable diseases that were suddenly made lingering and lethal by the bombing by the United States and its allies of water and power supplies, sewage systems, and roads.

Of the estimated 158,000 deaths, Daponte concluded that nearly 40,000 of the victims were women and 32,000 were children.

After the Associated Press ran the estimate in January 1992, Daponte was told by the Census Bureau that she was going to be fired on the basis of issuing ''false information,'' ''untrustworthiness,'' and ''unreliability.''

The Census Bureau backed down after Daponte received swift and strong support from civil libertarians and statisticians. A year later she published an even more refined report with even more grotesque numbers. In a study published in the quarterly publication of the Physicians for Social Responsibility, Daponte estimated the final death toll to be 205,500. The war itself resulted in 56,000 deaths to soldiers and 3,500 to civilians. Another 35,000 people died in internal postwar fighting. The biggest single number of deaths again was to civilians after the destruction of the nation's infrastructure: 111,000.

In Daponte's second analysis, the number of women who died from health effects of the war went down, to 16,500, but the number of children who died soared to 70,000. In addition, 8,500 senior citizens died. If that number is anywhere close to true, that means that far more Iraqi children died than Iraqi soldiers.

This seems to be mostly a conversation you're having with yourself.

Seriously Crazyhorse1...please actually THINK before you post again...

If you are a professor then try to use your ability to critically analyze data.

There are a ton of problems with this study. It just raises more questions than answers. To wit...

The last time this same guy released a study (conveniently it was just before the 2004 presidential election) he openly stated that the it was explicitly politicial in its intent. The study was then the subject of ridicule for its use of sketchy statistical "fudges" which increased the numbers exponentially.

Wait... aren't we up for another election again?? Sure are... so this report is right on time as usual.

Now lets focus on Zogby for a second...

"Validation of cluster sampling methodologies as an appropriate alternative to simple random sampling is difficult in conflict situations."

Thats from page 3 of the Appendix to the report.

If the methodology is not validated for conflict situations, why should anyone consider it reliable?

Additionally, since this was done via Interviews the subject can turn on what questions were asked. As any pollster will tell you you will garner a different result if you ask the question a different way.

I'll give you an example. I know someone who lost a family member on 9/11 (father-in-law). That person was not in her immediate family. If the pollster asked "Did you lose a family member on 9/11?" Her answer would be "Yes". If they then asked her mother-in-law (living in a different state) the same question her answer would also be "Yes". If they then asked her brother-in-law (who also lives in a different state) the same question, his answer would also be "Yes".

So thats 3 confirmed "deaths" for only 1 actual death according to researchers. All because of an ambiguous question.

Since the bias of the researchers are in question, there's always the possibility that the researchers deliberately asked ambiguous questions which would allow them to distort the data.

Lets go on shall we??

If it is to be believed, according to this report over 500 people have died every day.

Every day.

Where are they? The "researchers" don't have a clue.

According to this report --> 14% of the 655,000 people died as a result of suicide bombers, that would be about 91,700 people.

When and where were these people killed? The "researchers" don't have a clue.

A bad month in Iraq is about 3000 casualties, but according to this survey, over 15,000 people have died every single month.

1/3rd would have died in air raids. I'm not entirely sure but I believe that toll is more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

According to this report 57% were killed by gunfire, that would be about 373,000 people.

Where are the bodies?
When and where they buried?

The "researchers" don't have a clue

Did the BBC and AP, UPI, Reuters, AlJazeera all conspire to help hide the truth?

Are the US and the Iraqi government together with all the doctors and mayors part of the plot ot hide these hundreds of thousands of dead people?

The violence is generally concentrated in 3 provinces where they went. This isn't 650,000 out of Iraq's total population of 25 million, it's 650,000 out of maybe 10 million in those provinces. Now take a look at the casualty figures for WWII or any other war and you'll see that wounded figures are typically 5x's the death toll. If this study were correct, this would put the wounded at about 3million out of the approx 10 million who live in those provinces.

So we should be seeing that 1 in 3 Iraqis in those areas have been wounded. Where have these people gone to secretly get treated??

According to the study, researchers gathered data from a sample of 1,849 Iraqi households with a total of 12,801 residents from late May to early July. That sample was used to extrapolate the total figure of 600,000+. But one problem is in how they "extrapolated" isn't it?

Lets just start with the fact that the fact that the study found 547 actual deaths in their surveyed group and extrapolated it to a dizzying 655,000.

That would be like me polling the DNC convention in 2004 and extrapolating that Kerry/Edwards were going to win every state.

Come on my friend... think!!! They did interviews in 47 clusters, 12 of them were in Baghdad, 3 were in Basra, and 3 were in Anbar. Approx 1/4 of their guesstimate comes from Baghdad (only 21% of the population is in Baghdad), and all of their interviews came from populated areas where they could interview people (so word-of-mouth of their purpose would help keep the interviewers safe) and conveniently it was also where the violence is concentrated.

Yeah, if I used that methodology I'd think that 650,000 died too.

Going further --> 650,000 violent deaths is about 150,000 more than the number of soldiers who died during the American Civil War. The American Civil War was fought with a population about 50% larger than Iraq's ... lasted a year than the current conflict has been going on and ranged in scope into a much larger area than the current violence. Since you are supposedly a professor and therefore presumably know how to read and interpret data, why don't you look up accounts of the battles of Antietam or Gettysburg or Shiloh. You won't find anything in Iraq that resembles them.

Let me go back to the "study". Look at my world mortality link in my first post;

According to the study the mortality rate in Iraq is a little over 13 per 1000

The mortality rate in Hungary (where I'm probably going to vacation in november) is 13 per 1000

The world average mortality rate is 8.5 per 1000 per year.

Wht then does the Lancet study use a "baseline" mortality rate of only 5.5 ???

After all "interviews"...the "study" comes up with a mortality rate for Iraq that is statistically the same as Hungary.

I must have missed it, but Hungary hasn't been at war for decades. The EU has been at relative peace for over 60 years now. They have socialized healthcare which is supposed to make everyone healthier if we're to believe the Left.

But their baseline mortality rates are more than double Saddams Iraq.

Do our fellow Redskins fans from across the pond know that their countries were more dangerous than Saddam's Iraq pre-invasion?? If so, I bet it comes as news to them.

It is really easy to come up with a huge number of "excess deaths" if one paints the rosy picture that no one ever died of anything in Iraq prior to 2003. Which would come as shocking news to the Kurds and Shiites.

The researchers knew what they were doing when they selected their period for "baseline". They chose: January 2002 through March 2003. Durign this time period Saddam's violence against the Kurds was hampered by the no-fly zone in the north. This period was also after the extermination of hundreds of thousands of Shia and Marsh Arabs in the south. Remember them???

The researchers cherry-picked a brief period of US-enforced peace within a 25-year despotic rule that was rife with war and and mass murder oif its own civilians. They then laughably called it a "baseline," and they then compared that baseline against a period of war.

How convenient...

Anthony Cordesman, who holds the Arleigh Burke chair in strategy at the Center for International and Strategic Studies (and no friend to the Bush administration) said in this story;

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... rnational/

To wit I will quote:

"This is not analysis, its politics"

Listen, they took the deaths of a few hundred people and extrapolated them into more than 600,000 and they compared numbers to the pre-invasion Iraq saying there had been virtually no violent deaths in Iraq the 14 months before the invasion. Think about how absurd that is.

The only thing the "researchers" proved is that MS Excel can do Mathematical calculations.

crazyhorse1

You're waisting your breath (or in this case your fingers) attempting to reason with chaddukes and thaiphoon.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet you these two have:

1) Bush bumper stickers on their cars

2) Those cute little ribbons that say support the troops (which does nothing to support them, while they argue for continuing this war)

3) An 8x10 of Ann Coulter to assist them in those private moments

4) Tivo recording of every Hannity & Colmes and Bill O'Reilly show since 911

Frankly, facts and figures are thrown around from both sides, and those that choose the official story line will always embrace the sources that support their position every time without respect for common sense and the obvious questionable credibility and bias of the sources they cite.

Hypothetical interview of Adolf Hitler in 1942 by Independent Nazi News: Mr. Hitler, according to some international sources, you are systematically murdering Millions of Jews in your concentration camps. Is this true? Hitler: That is an absurd insinuation. Of course not. NAZI NEWS HEADLINES : Absurd claims of Jew BBQ untrue!

So, the notion that the death rate in Iraq is in keeping with average natural death rates of many countries is so preposterous......how can you argue with someone like that? The answer is you can't.

Especially considering the sources they use to support their absurd statements......such as NEWSMAX, which is the most biased lie filled propaganda rag on the net.

Case in point, according to NEWSMAX, Rep. Steve King, (R-IA) compiled statistics using Pentagon statistics cross-checked with independent research. King said he came up with an annualized Iraqi civilian death rate of 27.51 per 100,000.

Comparing those figures to:

Washington, D.C - 45 violent deaths per 100,000

Detroit - 41.8 per 100,000

Baltimore - 37.7 per 100,000

Atlanta - 34.9 per 100,000

St. Louis - 31.4 per 100,000

So, according to these figures, you're almost twice as safe in Iraq than in most major US cities. including Washington, DC

Besides the obvious absurdity of this conclusion, another problem exists with this story when you consider that the Pentagon has always, and continues to maintain that they do not keep civilian death toll statistics. Apparently those Pentagon statistics come from some other unnamed source, cross-checked I'm sure with other independent research.

The bottom line for these types are why do you need organizations like Doctors without Borders, Amnesty International, The Red Cross, and the other clearly biased sources when you can get the true facts from the Pentagon and NEWSMAX, cross-checked with other independent sources like FOX News.

You know who else is dead? Corey Lidle, and that's a true fact

I have an idea I think might work. Considering how safe it is in Iraq compared to cities like DC and Baltimore, let's take all of the men from every US city, give them a gun, and send them to Baghdad!

That would solve all of the problems. We'd finally have enough bodies on the ground over there to effectively occupy the country and kill all of those pesky insurgents, and our guys would be much safer than they are at home. Yeah yeah, that's the ticket....let's send them to Baghdad. Let's start with a couple of people on this thread.

I don't wanna go

1) Bush bumper stickers on their cars

2) Those cute little ribbons that say support the troops (which does nothing to support them, while they argue for continuing this war)

3) An 8x10 of Ann Coulter to assist them in those private moments

4) Tivo recording of every Hannity & Colmes and Bill O'Reilly show since 911

You're only 2 out of 4. .500 is ok I guess. Although I'd bet I've probably done more to support troops who are in the field than you have. It obviously can't be proven (you and I obviously don't know each other in real life so how can it be?) but it illustrates the absurdity of your belief that people with ribbon stickers on their cars have done nothing other than put them on there.

Frankly, facts and figures are thrown around from both sides, and those that choose the official story line will always embrace the sources that support their position every time without respect for common sense and the obvious questionable credibility and bias of the sources they cite.

I've sourced alot of stuff my friend. I've relied on the study itself most of the time. Whats funny is that in your 9/11 video argument you fail to follwo your own rules for sourcing. Yet you want people to source everything here???

Kettle this is RaynAustin calling ...

So, the notion that the death rate in Iraq is in keeping with average natural death rates of many countries is so preposterous......how can you argue with someone like that? The answer is you can't.

Exactly...

Especially considering the sources they use to support their absurd statements......such as NEWSMAX, which is the most biased lie filled propaganda rag on the net.

Case in point, according to NEWSMAX, Rep. Steve King, (R-IA) compiled statistics using Pentagon statistics cross-checked with independent research. King said he came up with an annualized Iraqi civilian death rate of 27.51 per 100,000.

Comparing those figures to:

Washington, D.C - 45 violent deaths per 100,000

Detroit - 41.8 per 100,000

Baltimore - 37.7 per 100,000

Atlanta - 34.9 per 100,000

St. Louis - 31.4 per 100,000

So, according to these figures, you're almost twice as safe in Iraq than in most major US cities. including Washington, DC

Look carefully at my original post in this thread. See it?? Does the mortality link i supplied link to Newsmax?? No ?? Ok then ...

Besides the obvious absurdity of this conclusion, another problem exists with this story when you consider that the Pentagon has always, and continues to maintain that they do not keep civilian death toll statistics. Apparently those Pentagon statistics come from some other unnamed source, cross-checked I'm sure with other independent research

The bottom line for these types are why do you need organizations like Doctors without Borders, Amnesty International, The Red Cross, and the other clearly biased sources when you can get the true facts from the Pentagon and NEWSMAX, cross-checked with other independent sources like FOX News.

You want sources?? You think that there are few too many individual sources of information from Iraq?? You must be joking right??? that may have been true under Saddam, but not now.

Under Saddam, there were no commercial TV stations, no commercial radio stations, and no independent print media.

Today, there are over 250 independent print media organizations. there are over 100 commercial redio stations and over 50 commercial TV stations. Practically every political "actor" (tribe, religious sect, political group) has its own media with which it turns out daily news.

Now, my wife has worked in journalism for years. The old adage of "If it bleeds, it leads" is ALWAYS true regardless of if its in Baltimore or Baghdad. Stories of mass deaths, suicide bombs, IED's, kidnappings,etc... would be the lead story on any radio or TV station. Why is it that these 400+ news media in Iraq don't report the stories of 650k people dying??

If the "study" that you an CH1 believe is true... then you must first agree that the press of Iraq (over 400 media outlets - many of which have an axe to grind in terms of the US and would be happy to report mass deaths, etc...) ignores or completely misses almost all of the killings the "study" says there were. Looks like yours and CH1's arguments are being founded on intellectual quicksand to me.

Finally... you REALLY need to slow down and read what others have posted. At no time have I linked Newsmax have I??

here were my links

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... death_rate

I graduated with advanced degrees and although I didn't graduate from college with a degree in English --> I can still READ English. When looking at those links I fail to see the word Newsmax in them...

How is it that you missed that??

I have an idea I think might work. Considering how safe it is in Iraq compared to cities like DC and Baltimore, let's take all of the men from every US city, give them a gun, and send them to Baghdad!

That would solve all of the problems. We'd finally have enough bodies on the ground over there to effectively occupy the country and kill all of those pesky insurgents, and our guys would be much safer than they are at home. Yeah yeah, that's the ticket....let's send them to Baghdad. Let's start with a couple of people on this thread.

When we go over, what gun do you want me to lend you??

Hahahaha.

I'll take .500. Let me guess.....the ribbon, and the 8x10?

As for the NEWSMAX reference, I think that was brought up by your buddy "hanging chad" in the 911 vidoe piece.....and I only used it as an example of the types of "independent" and "credible" sources you always like to cite.

As for the statement that I don't provide reference links....that's a lie. In that 911 video debate, I posted a whole page of links for which I got an immediate rebuke as if you could read and view 20 hours of information in 2 1/2 minutes. I think there were 8-10 different links, each of which cited several sources for upwards of 50+ in total.

Now let's examine this incredibly assinine diatribe of the 400 independent media sources in Iraq. YOU CRACK ME UP !!!!! You used to annoy me, now I anxiously await the next absurd statement because laughter is good for the soul.

I don't know what collage you attended, but you should ask for your money back. LOL

How many mainstream media outlets are in America? I don't know....10,000......20,000 ??? However many there are, they are all owned by 6 companies. General Electric ownes a large chunck of them, and they are also a major defense contractor.....no war bias there I'm sure. Would you like a reference? A chart?

1) General Electric

2) Time Warner

3) The Walt Disney Corp

4) Viacom

5) New Corporation

6) Vivendi Universal

But back to Iraq. Do you know that an Iraqi can't even run a fruit stand without permision papers and licenses by their military rulers? I expect the criteria for a TV station, Radio station, or News Paper might require some similar control structure?

Tell me...do you really believe your own BS, or are you just one of those types that like to argue.

According to reports readily available....enough to stack as high as you are tall, describe the number of journalists killed in Iraq by coalition forces. Media housed in hotels attacked with US shells.....even today there is a report of a UK journalist killed by US forces.

And then there are the embeded reporters.....what a crock.

Just how many of these Iraqi media do you subscribe to? How many are credible sources? Only the ones that support your arguments I'm sure.

So, the notion that the death rate in Iraq is in keeping with average natural death rates of many countries is so preposterous......how can you argue with someone like that? The answer is you can't.

Especially considering the sources they use to support their absurd statements......such as NEWSMAX, which is the most biased lie filled propaganda rag on the net.

I never once linked to Newsmax, nor did anyone else. And your point about the lower mortality rate lends credence to our argument......

....if you want to make personal attacks you should do so in the smack forum.

Chad