NEWS: Civilian Casualties in Iraq Woefully Underestimated

POLITICS: Civilian Casualties in Iraq Woefully Underestimated

A newly published study by the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore states that the number of civilian casualties in Iraq has been severely underestimated to this point -- and that they may in fact amount to over 100,000 deaths. The report is scheduled to be published in the on-line version of the British medical journal The Lancet on Friday.

This total is far greater than previous reports have suggested. Independent sites such as Iraq Body Count are still reporting civilian deaths in the range of 14,000 to 16,000, roughly the same as that suggested by a New York Times article of October 19.

The impact of this study is difficult to discount, especially considering that, according to an article in The Nation about a related study, Saddam Hussein's 24-year dictatorship claimed a total of 300,000 lives -- averaging out to 12,500 deaths a year. Even given the more conservative casualty estimates, this suggests that the current military campaign is more hazardous to the people of Iraq than the dictatorship it deposed.

Those damned liberal academics, always lying and contradicting the government, who we all know can do no wrong. The Iraqi people welcomed us with parades and flowers! We are the liberators! Mission accomplished!

Why do those silly academics hate America?

yeah, we took that statue down, man!
they don't understand the price of freedom!

yeah, we took that statue down, man!
they don't understand the price of freedom!

Hah!!! We ARE America!

why did you feel the need to make this a partisan thing? and i know you're being satirical, but in that you're just making it another "democrats vs. republicans" issue, as though there were a difference.

And sadly even if most Americans read this they would just shrug and jump into their SUV's.

Guess this puts the lie to all the pathetic 'humanitarian' arguments for the war.

This does need some perspective, though. War is always more hazardous to the current population than lack of a war. However, even though a lot of people are dying now Iraq's death toll may go down drastically in the future, meaning that the war actually did save Iraqi lives.

Which is not to say that this many people had to die or that the war was good or any of that. Just that looking at this purely as "Oh no! People die in a war!" is not very enlightening.

Except that most of those 300,000 occured before the first time the US fought Iraq; I doubt Saddam has been killing people at a prodigious rate for the last few years-he didn't have the resources to avoid the kind of insurgency that that would bring about. Whatever your arguments for this particular war are, that it will save lives in the long run seems highly improbable.

And "oh no, people die in a war!" seems very enlightening to me. If more people living in America had been thinking about that before-hand, maybe this War wouldn't have had as much public support as it had. War really should be a last resort (and I hate to borrow anything from John Kerry, but here I am doing it) and when you fly halfway across the planet to fight a country which couldn't threaten you militarily....that doesn't sound like a last resort.

You can argue about WMD and terrorists till the cows come home, but it won't change the fact that there were and still are countries which had/have or were/are developing Nuclear weapons and were far closer than the impovrished country of Iraq was (who couldn't maintain what conventional arms they had); and if terrorists were coming out of that country at a faster rate than average (for all countries in the world) they certainly weren't the fastest. Question: what nationality were most of the terrorists involved in the attacks on September 11th? Were any Iraqi?

Like I said, I am not saying that the war is justified. I'm saying that a fairly high casualty rate doesn't make a war wrong or even unbeneficial in the long run. We knocked Japan around and stuck its head in the toilet — and that country has been more successful because of it.

I'm not commenting on whether that is actually the case here — just that these numbers don't mean what people wish they would mean. If you want to argue that the war is unnecessary or won't benefit Iraq in the greater scheme of things, feel free, but not with this evidence.

Actually, this study is really easy to discount.

The actual study says that there were 98,000 deaths, with a 95% confidence interfal of 8,000-196,000.

Basically, what that means is not "There are 98,000 deaths" but rather "We're 95% certain that there are between 8,000 and 196,000 deaths."

That's an extremely, extremely dodgy statistic, and it's really irresponsible to report it as any kind of meaningful commentary beyond "Actually, we've got no clue how many people died."

Also, lets not forget -how many people died due to 10 years of crushing sanctions? Something like 500,000 children. Madelyn Albright said it was a price worth paying.

My fears are that many Iraqis will hate us for generations to come no matter how we continue from here, and also that due to their enormous oil reserves and ongoing regional conflicts, they will never enjoy peace and stability for long.

On the optimistic side, if the U.S. acts responsibly and tries to help negotiate a peace treaty between Israel and Palestine, our prestige in the Arab world will increase greatly.



[Edited on Oct 30, 2004 1:13PM]

I just gotta say bite your tongues if you hate america and you are american. If you dislike the country and its direction lets go do something about it. Its fun to stand back and insult isn't it? Why not go and DO SOMETHING? Because its far easier to say this on a website then go and run for a small politcal office as part of the democratic party or repbulican party.

If you hate America why would you run as a Democrat or Republican? I'm not saying that you're wrong-people should act if they feel that strongly-but running as one of the parties that are turning this country into what you hate (and lets face it, if you hate America you're pretty much guaranteed to hate Republicans and Democrats-whatever problems a person may have with this country can be largely attributed to those parties...or that party). The problem is that to run for high office where you can get things changed, you have to be a) RICH or b) convince RICH people to fund you. That's hard to do unless you're protecting the rich people in question. This is the essential problem with implementing real, lasting change in America for those who believe that protecting America's economy and protecting America's people are two very different things.

Plus, I have to point out that many of the people on this website are far too young to run for office, and just being a member of this website is, unfortunately, a political liability, especially if you're planning on running Rebublican.

[Edited on Oct 30, 2004 1:40PM]

Consider it a pre-emptive strike against the drivel that is continually spouted whenever something controversial --or that runs contrary to the statements coming from Washington DC-- is published by the scientific or academic communities, or by the news media.

If I say it first and get it out of the way, then the people who actually believe things like what I said have to really, really back up their points, at risk of looking like total morons.

[Edited on Oct 30, 2004 by Shalome]

how can you really come up with a number of civilian deaths when the people that are attacking allied compounds are wearing civilian clothes there are no uniformes just people wheelding ak 47's and rpg's it is easy to say things when you arent being shot at by people that looklike everyday people wearing civilian clothes

This was accounted for in the study, to the degree that it could be ascertained. From page 3:

Also, the researchers stated that this may have contributed to an underestimation of the casualty numbers, not an overestimation (page 6).

Finally, it's been the case until recently that the insurgency is a mix of native Iraqis (mostly former military) and foreign militants. One of the requirements in the study is that only those deaths involving members of the household who had been present for at least two months would be counted. This was introduced in order to reduce the number of military or insurgent deaths that might otherwise be introduced.

I don't quite understand what this has to do with this particular thread.

Considering that the last two pages of the article (out of seven total, not including the references and footnotes) were dedicated to pointing out the weaknesses and potential errors in the study, I would hesitate to say that this is "irresponsible." It was fully qualified, and the rationale for the results was clearly and comprehensively presented.

The need for further review was acknowledged and stated at the end of the article:

BTW, the 8,000 - 196,000 range results from the asymmetrical distribution of the casualties. As the individuals involved in the study stated, it was impossible to use more than 33 clusters due to the risk that more extensive travel posed to the lives of the people involved. In fact, 33 clusters were selected because it was assumed that at least 10% of the areas would be unreachable. Having more data and a more comprehensive study would help narrow this range.

Two pages at the end of an article saying "Umm, actually our study kinda sucked" does not make up for going out into the media and providing the great sound bite about 100,000 being a conservative estimate. Yes. Conservative. Unless it falls into the MASSIVE CONFIDENCE INTERVAL whereby it could be exeedingly liberal.

I mean, yes, I know why the study was flawed and why it generated such little information. And I'm sure it was the bst study that could be conducted in the circumstances. I'm just saying, in that case, what we learned from the study was not that there were 100,000 deaths. It's that we don't have any good way of telling.

Run for City council, school board, treasurer. Its a start and yeah if we all got up in mass and joined a party we can carve that party into what we WANT. We need not be slaves to be we can command it. The rich run because they have the time look at most of our senators and congressman. 80% came from the middle class and you need not start at the top. City council to mayor to state rep to congressan and then to senator. I could do that with some effort and if we need to start lower than city council go for school board or treasurer or DA. If you have good political ideas then express them and go out and do something about it. Its one thing to sit back on your ass and cry about bush and his bad policies its another thing to get off that same ass and go and run for office and get all your friends to vote for you.

Mr Gluestick, may i ask you which position as a public representative you hold?

I plan on running for school board in another year or so. Just to make sure I am still here in the city by then. If you live in Pittsburgh come vote for me.