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Sunday, July 29, 2007

Accounting Iraq

posted by on July 29 at 18:14 PM

This morning I finally got around to reading AO Scott’s review of “No End in Sight.”

One line jumped out at me:

…nor does he spend a lot of time chronicling the violence that has so far taken the lives of more than 3,000 American soldiers and marines and tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of Iraqis.
(emphasis added)

There really is no need to equivocate about the number of Iraqi lives lost due to this invasion, thanks to a brave study done between May and July of 2006. While not flawless, this study is by far the most accurate estimate of the number of lives lost as a consequence of the 2003 invasion.

We estimate that between March 18, 2003, and June, 2006, an additional 654,965 (392,979–942,636) Iraqis have died above what would have been expected on the basis of the pre-invasion crude mortality rate as a consequence of the coalition invasion. Of these deaths, we estimate that 601,027 (426,369–793,663) were due to violence.
(emphasis added)

Why is this number so much higher than reported by surveillance measures (that report numbers more in the tens of thousands)?

Our estimate of excess deaths is far higher than those reported in Iraq through passive surveillance measures. This discrepancy is not unexpected. Data from passive surveillance are rarely complete, even in stable circumstances, and are even less complete during conflict, when access is restricted and fatal events could be intentionally hidden. Aside from Bosnia, we can find no conflict situation where passive surveillance recorded more than 20% of the deaths measured by population-based methods. In several outbreaks, disease and death recorded by facility-based methods underestimated events by a factor of ten or more when compared with population-based estimates.

The authors go on to show that the trends of the various studies match closely – a further validation of the approach.

This is an amazing study, given the enormous risk involved in sampling in an active war zone. For an Iraq spiraling into civil war, this was an ambitious undertaking.

A sample size of 12 000 was calculated to be adequate … and was chosen to balance the need for robust data with the level of risk acceptable to field teams… selection of survey sites was by random numbers applied to streets or blocks rather than with global positioning units (GPS), since surveyors felt that being seen with a GPS unit could put their lives at risk. The use of GPS units might be seen as targeting an area for air strikes, or that the unit was in reality a remote detonation control. By confining the survey to a cluster of houses close to one another it was felt the benign purpose of the survey would spread quickly by word of mouth among households, thus lessening risk to interviewers.

So, the next time you hear someone waffling on the human cost of this war—about equivalent to killing the entire population of Seattle—remind them of this study.

RSS icon Comments

1

Let's not overlook our 'private army', such as those working for Blackwater.

The last I heard, the contractor deaths add an extra 1,000 or so to the count.

Posted by SeanD | July 29, 2007 6:54 PM
2

That survey is not without its critics. The humanitarian disaster that is Iraq today is obvious, whatever the numbers, but Fred Kaplan, in a good look at the study in Slate, suggests a couple of major flaws that likely result in an overly high estimate of deaths:
http://www.slate.com/id/2151926/

Posted by Eric F | July 29, 2007 8:34 PM
3

huh? Nope the 1000 contractors who chose to go to Iraq are not important to remember when talking about Iraqi deaths. Unless you want to change the subject.
BTW the Iraqi death rate it 2.3% of the Iraq population of 27 million; if we applied that 2.3% to the USA population of 300 million it translates to 7 million deaths.

that's not the equivalent of Seattle (about 590,000)---it's more than TEN Seattles.

And now let's turn to internal refugeee, external refugees, homeless, and wounded.....

Posted by unPC | July 29, 2007 8:44 PM
4

@2.

I thought about linking to the Slate article -- it was a very fair critique -- but ultimately decided against it.
As I (and Kaplan) noted, it is about the best study that one could do, given the circumstances. Even if you accept Kaplan's critiques, the number is in the hundreds of thousands, rather than tens of thousands.

Still, nice catch.

Posted by Jonathan Golob | July 29, 2007 8:46 PM
5

While these numbers could be accurate, I have a problem with one of their primary assertions: "By confining the survey to a cluster of houses close to one another it was felt the benign purpose of the survey would spread quickly by word of mouth among households, thus lessening risk to interviewers." While that could indeed be the case, they also risk the validity of their results by allowing that group to know that if they over inflate their reports, they will be greatly influencing the overall estimates.

The discussion is moot in any case. Tens of thousands needlessly dead is no less wrong than hundreds of thousands. Iraq was not only a pointless exercise that yielded no positive results, the negative consequences have been enormous.

All indications point to the Iraqi people wanting the withdrawal of US troops. It should be done and soon.

Posted by Ryan | July 29, 2007 9:16 PM
6

Bush couldn\'t have started this war without supporters. They, like Bush, bear responsibility for this carnage.

Excerpt from \"Say Yes To War\" by Dan Savage October 2002

\"In the meantime, invading and rebuilding Iraq will not only free the Iraqi people, it will also make the Saudis aware of the consequences they face if they continue to oppress their own people while exporting terrorism and terrorists. The War on Iraq will make it clear to our friends and enemies in the Middle East (and elsewhere) that we mean business: Free your people, reform your societies, liberalize, and democratize... or we\'re going to come over there, remove you from power, free your people, and reform your societies for ourselves\"

July 2007

Over 3600 American soldiers dead
Over 53,000 seriously wounded and maimed
Over 650,000 Iraqis dead
? seriously wounded and maimed
Over 2,000,000 Iraqis have fled their country
Estimated total cost (for USA) of Iraq war $2,000,000,000,000
US sells $20,000,000,000 in weapons to Saudis
Al Qaida is stronger than ever

Posted by Gomez | July 29, 2007 9:20 PM
7

If, like me, you find numbers like "654,965" hard to grok, a traveling exhibit by the Iraq Peace Project gives a pretty stunning visual representation of the casualties (Iraqi and American) using planted flags.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7J7QxKltTbM

Each of 112,000 small, white flags planted represents about 5 (almost 6) Iraqi casualties. 3,000 small, red flags represent roughly one American casualty each.

For those like Eric F. @2 who are concerned that the Lancet study exaggerates (by... oh, a factor of 5, let's say) pretend the white flags each represent only one Iraqi casualty.

Still pretty staggering.

Posted by TCBATL | July 29, 2007 9:43 PM
8

unPC - I was just trying to add a footnote to the stat on 'American soldiers' deaths, which the post had included as a quote. I have no point to make about it, the 'private army', except to note that it is usually ignored when counting our troops, alive and healthy or otherwise.

Posted by SeanD | July 29, 2007 9:51 PM
9

\"This unit sets up this traffic control point and this 18 year old kid is on top of an armored Humvee with a .50 caliber machine gun,\" remembered Geoffrey Millard who served in Tikrit with the 42nd Infantry Division. \"And this car speeds at him pretty quick and he makes a split second decision that that\'s a suicide bomber, and he presses the butterfly trigger and puts 200 rounds in less than a minute into this vehicle. It killed the mother, a father and two kids. The boy was aged four and the daughter was aged three.\"

\"And they briefed this to the general,\" Millard said, \"and they briefed it gruesome. I mean, they had pictures. They briefed it to him. And this colonel turns around to this full division staff and says, \'if these fucking Hadjis learned to drive, this shit wouldn\'t happen.\'\"

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/58101/

Posted by Chris Hedges article | July 29, 2007 10:41 PM
10

\"This unit sets up this traffic control point and this 18 year old kid is on top of an armored Humvee with a .50 caliber machine gun,\" remembered Geoffrey Millard who served in Tikrit with the 42nd Infantry Division. \"And this car speeds at him pretty quick and he makes a split second decision that that\'s a suicide bomber, and he presses the butterfly trigger and puts 200 rounds in less than a minute into this vehicle. It killed the mother, a father and two kids. The boy was aged four and the daughter was aged three.\"

\"And they briefed this to the general,\" Millard said, \"and they briefed it gruesome. I mean, they had pictures. They briefed it to him. And this colonel turns around to this full division staff and says, \'if these fucking Hadjis learned to drive, this shit wouldn\'t happen.\'\"

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/58101/

Posted by Chris Hedges article | July 29, 2007 10:52 PM
11

The tobacco industry will kill 400,000 Americans this year. In two years they will have killed more humans in America than Bush has been able to kill in Iraq in five years and spending $500,000,000,000. And they have begun the process of killing more Americans in the future by placing advertisements in The Stranger to attract new customers to addict and poison.

Posted by Joe Camel | July 29, 2007 11:01 PM
12

Gomez-

It's so fucking awesome when we liberals form a circular firing squad. Just brings a warmth to my heart.

People like Dan are NOT to blame for the clusterfuck that Iraq has become. Bush & Co lied to us and about what they knew, used the false bravado of a shitheel dictator to convince the American people that he had WMD, and then incompetently executed the war.

Blame them. If you're going to disenfranchise anyone who supported Bush and/or the war at any point after 9/11- let's see, Bush as at what, 90% approval rating for a while there- you're going to be in awfully lonely and ineffective company.

Posted by Big Sven | July 29, 2007 11:15 PM
13

Thanks so much for this! I can't wait to go find all the Republican war cheerleaders I know and show them this convincing proof of the war's horrible cost. After all, the study is based on reason and evidence, and it uses mathematical theories widely accepted by experts in the field.

That sort of thing worked like a charm back when we proved to them that there were no WMDs, and when we convinced them that we needed to take action about global warming, didn't it? Didn't it?

Posted by elenchos | July 29, 2007 11:43 PM
14

Yeah 13 it\'s like trying to convince a Dan Savage supporter that his support for the war actually makes him to some degree responsible for the results. #12 thinks poor Dan is a fuckan victim. But Dan is an adult. He made a choice. He enthusiastically cheerleaded Bush\'s war and ridiculed any and all lefties and liberals who disagreed with him-called them stupid and squish heads! Now he says whoops, I made a mistake. Let\'s move on. Here\'s a photo of a guy with a bottle up his ass. Here is a new rim job anecdote.

Posted by Gomez | July 29, 2007 11:56 PM
15

What is the soultion to this genocide commited against Iraq? Why is Bush still in power? Why do we have more troops in Iraq now then before the last election? How come antiwar demostrators are like the homeless on the street begging for peace?

Posted by Gay Jesus | July 30, 2007 1:49 AM
16

Please, the Bush lied argument is a tired rationalization. There were plenty of voices out there saying that Bush and his gang were falsifying reports, distorting facts, and misleading the public in the lead up to the war. Hans Blix, though he couldn't prove a negative, warned against the existence of WMD (he followed up on every lead the U.S. government fed him and found nothing). Noam Chomsky dissected the media reports. Joe Wilson, a favorite amongst the Bush lied crowd, warned against one of the Bush lies before the invasion. People who chose to believe Bush made a decision to stick their heads in the sand. They made a mistake and now try to rationalize that horrible decision.

That's still a far cry from blaming Dan and those like him for the war. They aren't to blame and it's impossible to say whether or not they could have prevented it if they had made a different decision. In any case, it's a waste of breath to continue to pound the point. The war happened and we need to get out. How to do that is today's discussion. While whether or not you listen to former war supporter's ideas may be colored by how you felt about their previous choice, continuing to berate them for the old decision is childish, at best.

Posted by B.D. | July 30, 2007 6:06 AM
17

B.D. - you left off Scott Ritter who was on Mike Webb's show numerous times and clearly, with much expertise, made the point that no WMD existed in Iraq. Other than that bravo to your post.

Posted by whatever | July 30, 2007 8:10 AM
18

Remember also that this study was conducted over a year ago, and it's results made public some nine months ago. All other indications are that civilian violence has not gone down. It's impossible to say until another similar study is done, but the current numbers are probably nearly one-third larger than these estimates. So say 800,000 excess violent deaths in Iraq.

The details are even more interesting, as they also show breakdowns for cause of death by both method and culprit. The US "coalition" is responsible for 31% of deaths; the rest are from the Iraqi civil war. The leading cause of death, comprising 56% of cases, is gunshots. Air strikes have killed as many people as car bombs(13% for each).

Posted by Cascadian | July 30, 2007 8:14 AM
19

Gomez et al.:

rather than repeat your asserts like ol' Joe McCarthy, why don't you give us the proof includling

(a) what all these warnings were, in quotes,
and (b) what the act "authorizing the war" acually said.

Wait there's more. Why not also tell us what foriegn policywe should have today?

Maybe you can continue your record of calling things right! Maybe you can show that yet again you and others are smarter than the mainstream politicians and media including the Stranger!

We are waiting anxiously to benefit from your omniscience. I mean it wasn't a one time thing was it??

Posted by unPC | July 30, 2007 8:34 AM
20

Uh, that's not the real Gomez, is it? Yikes!

Posted by Levislade | July 30, 2007 9:23 AM
21
Each of 112,000 small, white flags planted represents about 5 (almost 6) Iraqi casualties. 3,000 small, red flags represent roughly one American casualty each.

Because everyone knows that one American life is worth five to six Iraqi lives.

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22

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