3. Why is it so hard for people to believe the Lancet report?
I am an Iraqi and can assure you that the figure given is nearer to the truth than any given before or since.
S Kazwini, London, UK
LR: I think it is hard to accept these results for a couple of reasons. People do not see the bodies. While in the UK there are well over 1000 deaths a day, they do not see the bodies there either. Secondly, people feel that all those government officials and all those reporters must be detecting a big portion of the deaths. When in actuality during times of war, it is rare for even 20% to be detected. Finally, there has been so much media attention given to the surveillance-based numbers put out by the coalition forces, the Iraqi Government and a couple of corroborating groups, that a population-based number is a dramatic contrast.
6. As an analyst myself I would like to know how reliable the method itself actually is.
Les Roberts and his colleagues claim to have used the same method to estimate deaths in Iraq as is used to estimate deaths in natural disasters. Is there any evidence that the method is accurate? By this I mean a comparison of the number actual deaths after a natural disaster with estimates of the number of deaths.
Rickard Loe, Stockholm, Sweden
LR: That is a good question. There is a little evidence of which I am aware. Note that the 2004 and 2006 studies found similar results for the pre- and initial post-invasion period which at least implies reproducibility. I led a 30 cluster mortality survey in Kalima in the DRC in 2001. The relief organization Merlin did a nutritional survey and measured mortality in the same area and with a recall period that covered part of our survey. Both were cluster surveys, Merlin used a different technique to select houses and we obtained statistically identical results. In a couple of refugee settings, cluster surveys have produced similar estimates to grave monitoring.
In 1999, in Katana Health Zone in the Congo, I led a mortality survey where we walked a grid over the health zone and interviewed 41 clusters of 5 houses at 1km. spacings. In that survey, we estimated that 1,600 children had died of measles in the preceding half year. A couple of weeks later we did a standard immunization coverage survey (30 clusters of 7 children but selected totally proportional to population) that asked about measles deaths and we found an identical result.
I suspect that Demographic Health Surveys or the UNICEF MICS surveys (which are both retrospective cluster mortality approaches) have been calibrated against census data but I do not know when or where.
Most of the deaths reported by Iraq Body Count are from sunni/shiite violence. However:
http://www.truthout.org/article/burying-lancet-report
'...After excluding any possible statistical anomalies, they estimated that at least 98,000 Iraqi civilians had died in the previous 18 months as a direct result of the invasion and occupation of their country. They also found that violence had become the leading cause of death in Iraq during that period. Their [The Lancet survey's] most significant finding was that the vast majority (79 percent) of violent deaths were caused by "coalition" forces using "helicopter gunships, rockets or other forms of aerial weaponry," and that almost half (48 percent) of these were children, with a median age of 8...'
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/4533
'...In the December 2005 edition of the New Yorker, journalist Seymour Hersh reported a US Air Force press release indicating that, since the beginning of the conflict, the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing alone had dropped more than 500,000 tons of ordnance on Iraq.
In December 2005, Associated Press reported that the US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps had "flown thousands of missions in support of US ground troops in Iraq this fall with little attention back home, including attacks by unmanned Predator aircraft armed with Hellfire missiles, military records show". ('Air Power Strikes Iraq Targets Daily,' Associated Press, December 20, 2005)
The aircraft included frontline attack planes. The number of airstrikes increased in the weeks leading up to the December 2005 election, from a monthly average of 25 in the first half of the year to more than 60 in September and 120 or more in October and November. The monthly number of air missions grew from 1,111 in September to 1,492 in November.
And yet, when we checked, the first 18 pages of the IBC database, covering the period between July 2005 and January 2006, contained just six references to helicopter attacks and airstrikes killing civilians.
What do these figures tell us about the sincerity and honesty of the IBC editors? Absolutely nothing - it is not at all our intention to challenge their integrity. But there are some important points that need to be made.
First, the dramatic absence of examples of mass killing by US-UK forces suggests that the low IBC toll of civilian deaths in comparison with other studies is partly explained by the fact that examples of US-UK killing are simply not being reported by the media or recorded by IBC...'
Two of these surveys - the Lancet report, and the ORB report - use the same methods that are accepted all over the world by scientists, epidemiologists, and politicians. They are the same methods that are employed when studying casualty figures from conflicts all over the world, and which are also used in medical surveys whose results are accepted and utilized by the medical community without question.
http://www.truthout.org/article/burying-lancet-report '..this response to his work [...]stands in sharp contrast to the way the same governments responded to a similar study he led in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2000. In that case, he reported that about 1.7 million people had died during 22 months of war and, as he says, "Tony Blair and Colin Powell quoted those results time and time again without any question as to the precision or validity." In fact the UN Security Council promptly called for the withdrawal of foreign armies from the Congo and the US State Department cited his study in announcing a grant of $10 million for humanitarian aid.
Roberts conducted a follow-up study in the Congo that raised the fatality estimate to three million and Tony Blair cited that figure in his address to the 2001 Labor Party conference...'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_sur ... casualties '...the same method was used by the US government following wars in Kosovo and Afghanistan. Roberts also said that the US government's Smart Initiative program is spending millions of dollars per year teaching NGOs and UN workers how to use the same cluster method for estimating mortality rates...
Ronald Waldman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University who worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for many years, called the survey method "tried and true," and added that "this is the best estimate of mortality we have."
In a letter to The Age, published Oct. 21, 2006, 27 epidemiologists and health professionals defended the methods of the study, writing that the study's "methodology is sound and its conclusions should be taken seriously."
The other type of survey is that of Iraq Body Count which relies on a handful of Western News Sources who are on the ground in Iraq. Spokesmen for Iraq Body Count have openly admitted that their methods are limited and that their numbers only reflect a fraction of the true numbers of Iraqi civilians killed.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/ 'IBC pointed out, "it is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media... our own total is certain to be an underestimate of the true position, because of gaps in reporting or recording". (Iraq Body Count, Quick FAQ and Press Release, 7th November 2004.
The journalists working on the ground in Iraq whose reports of casualties are relied upon by IBC are restricted from visiting certain areas of Iraq and are even routinely threatened and attacked if they report casualty figures which aren't to the coalitions liking.
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/4533 '...newspapers and journalists in Iraq are punished, and even attacked, for publishing stories that reflect badly on the US-UK occupation? Veteran BBC broadcaster Nick Gowing said recently:
"The trouble is that a lot of the military - particularly the American military - do not want us there. And they make it very uncomfortable for us to work. And I think that this is leading to security forces in some instances feeling it is legitimate to target us with deadly force and with impunity." (Cited, Jeremy Scahill, 'Shooting the messenger,' February 17, 2005,http://www.thenation.com)
Another factor is that Iraq Body Count is surveillance based. According to Les Roberts from the Lancet surveillance based studies are "...always incomplete in times of war. The three lowest estimates are surveillance based."
'I think it is hard to accept these results for a couple of reasons. People do not see the bodies. While in the UK there are well over 1000 deaths a day, they do not see the bodies there either. Secondly, people feel that all those government officials and all those reporters must be detecting a big portion of the deaths. When in actuality during times of war, it is rare for even 20% to be detected. Finally, there has been so much media attention given to the surveillance-based numbers put out by the coalition forces, the Iraqi Government and a couple of corroborating groups, that a population-based number is a dramatic contrast.'
Firstly, how many bodies would you expect to be left after a 5000 ton bomb has been dropped on a residential building?
Secondly, what bodies do remain are often buried within 24 hours as part of Muslim custom.
Thirdly, the Lancet report conducted house to house surveys and interviewed family members who may or may not have lost relatives. They were unable unable to conduct interviews with family members of famil'ys that had been completely wiped out.
Regarding the Lancet and ORB surveys 'A Reuters article reports on other researchers, epidemiologists, professors, and physicians who have defended the study. For example; this quote from the article;
"Over the last 25 years, this sort of methodology has been used more and more often, especially by relief agencies in times of emergency," said Dr. David Rush, a professor and epidemiologist at Tufts University in Boston.[79]
Sir Richard Peto, Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology in the University of Oxford, described the 2006 report as "statistically valid" in an interview on BBC television.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_sur ... casualties
Still, Jlew knows better. I wonder how many researchers the Gay Times has on the ground in Iraq conducting house-to-house surveys of civilian casualties?
there's been more than 100,000 deaths, jlew. yes, perhaps you can say there are 100,000 that have been documented, but you have to leave room for error because sometimes due to the war, civilians are unable to acquire enough food for example, or take on some illness or something. As a result of the war, those civilians died. Now, how many people died like that could be 200,000 or maybe even 500,000. Yes, it is easy for a number to be that high. do you know how many people were created as refugees as a result of this war? near 5,000,000 (UNHCR reported this, it's not really disputable). I bet you wouldn't expect that many, so considering there has been 5,000,000 who have been uprooted, I would say it is safe to assume that there are hundreds of thousands of deaths that were not acknowledged because they did not seem to be a direct result of the war (even if they were), such as starvation, illness, etc. You can also take for example the sanctions that were placed on Iraq in the early 90s which caused hundreds of thousands of deaths.
IBC also does not have anyone who speaks Arabic in their staff, so they are unable to make use of Arabic media sources and are heavily reliant on western sources as a result. To say that you do not agree with the 1,000,000 estimate is one thing, but you cannot then try to argue that IBC is accurate because it has too many flaws as well.
I have said several times that IBC is flawed and underestimated. and I never said the total count was 100,000. I'm merely saying its far more accurate than one million. I'd even say 200-500k seems reasonable. but thats still far off 1 million. thats all I'm saying. people hear a nice round powerful number and take it as fact, no questions asked.
IBC is not more accurate than the Lancet Report or the ORB report. The methods used by the Lancet Report and the ORB report are both accepted as being far more accurate surveys by researchers, epidemiologists, scientists and politicians all over the world. Anyone who actually bothers to read the articles I posted, rather than just repeating the same empty mantra, can see that. And the figure isn't a nice round number. The figure as it stands is 1.2 million.
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Surfing The far side of THE Sombrero Galaxy Posts: 18,200
there's been more than 100,000 deaths, jlew. yes, perhaps you can say there are 100,000 that have been documented, but you have to leave room for error because sometimes due to the war, civilians are unable to acquire enough food for example, or take on some illness or something. As a result of the war, those civilians died. Now, how many people died like that could be 200,000 or maybe even 500,000. Yes, it is easy for a number to be that high. do you know how many people were created as refugees as a result of this war? near 5,000,000 (UNHCR reported this, it's not really disputable). I bet you wouldn't expect that many, so considering there has been 5,000,000 who have been uprooted, I would say it is safe to assume that there are hundreds of thousands of deaths that were not acknowledged because they did not seem to be a direct result of the war (even if they were), such as starvation, illness, etc. You can also take for example the sanctions that were placed on Iraq in the early 90s which caused hundreds of thousands of deaths.
IBC also does not have anyone who speaks Arabic in their staff, so they are unable to make use of Arabic media sources and are heavily reliant on western sources as a result. To say that you do not agree with the 1,000,000 estimate is one thing, but you cannot then try to argue that IBC is accurate because it has too many flaws as well.
I have said several times that IBC is flawed and underestimated. and I never said the total count was 100,000. I'm merely saying its far more accurate than one million. I'd even say 200-500k seems reasonable. but thats still far off 1 million. thats all I'm saying. people hear a nice round powerful number and take it as fact, no questions asked.
Some here in this country seem to have a hard time trying to fathom that our occupation of the country of Iraq could cause over a million deaths but I believe it's true. It has nothing to do a nice round figure of 1 million it has to do more with the many, many collateral damage a war of this magnitude over this many years can and will cause.
Peace
*We CAN bomb the World to pieces, but we CAN'T bomb it into PEACE*...Michael Franti
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
Some here in this country seem to have a hard time trying to fathom that our occupation of the country of Iraq could cause over a million deaths but I believe it's true. It has nothing to do a nice round figure of 1 million it has to do more with the many, many collateral damage a war of this magnitude over this many years can and will cause.
Peace
just because you believe it to be true doesn't mean it actually is. you are basically saying its possible, so it must be true. I'm just going by facts and sourced information, not surveys of 0.000075% of the population.
well over 100,000 people have died as a result of this war. according to the facts, probably as much as 300-500,000. but we can't and shouldn't just pick a powerful number like one million and hold it as fact.
Some here in this country seem to have a hard time trying to fathom that our occupation of the country of Iraq could cause over a million deaths but I believe it's true. It has nothing to do a nice round figure of 1 million it has to do more with the many, many collateral damage a war of this magnitude over this many years can and will cause.
Peace
just because you believe it to be true doesn't mean it actually is. you are basically saying its possible, so it must be true. I'm just going by facts and sourced information, not surveys of 0.000075% of the population.
well over 100,000 people have died as a result of this war. according to the facts, probably as much as 300-500,000. but we can't and shouldn't just pick a powerful number like one million and hold it as fact.
...
The number of deaths doesn't matter.
The whole thing could have been avoided. Our bad decision was a bad decision whether 1 million people died or 1 hundred people died. It was the wrong decision, the wrong action that created this.
The whole thing could have been avoided.
Allen Fieldhouse, home of the 2008 NCAA men's Basketball Champions! Go Jayhawks!
Hail, Hail!!!
The whole thing could have been avoided. Our bad decision was a bad decision whether 1 million people died or 1 hundred people died. It was the wrong decision, the wrong action that created this.
The whole thing could have been avoided.
I agree with this. but it happened, so by accepting that fact, we should at least try and be as accurate as possible about reality.
The whole thing could have been avoided. Our bad decision was a bad decision whether 1 million people died or 1 hundred people died. It was the wrong decision, the wrong action that created this.
The whole thing could have been avoided.
I agree with this. but it happened, so by accepting that fact, we should at least try and be as accurate as possible about reality.
...
Agreed. Accuracy and TRUTH is what we really need... but, never seem to get.
Allen Fieldhouse, home of the 2008 NCAA men's Basketball Champions! Go Jayhawks!
Hail, Hail!!!
i believe that the number is way more than 100,000. anyone who believes that it is ok for us to have killed 100,000 or a million iraqis that had nothing to do with 9/11 is truely a sick bastard. we punnished that entire country and for what? because their leader was talking trash and posturing? seriously, how can anybody be ok with this? it is like the prevailing attitude for some around here is "well to make an omelettte you gotta break a few eggs", or in this case "to have peace in the middle east you gotta divert from your original mission, start a needless war and kill a half a million civillians"...it is completely outrageous. this is the worst thing our country has ever done. and i think getting a shoe thrown at him was the very least that bush deserved. by the way, the shoe thrower gets out tomorrow and he will be greeted as a hero. that should really piss off some people on here.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
The majority of civilian deaths in Iraq have been cause by aerial bombardments by U.S and British forces. This is the part that many people refuse to accept. People would rather believe that most Iraqi deaths are caused by the insurgency and sectarian violence. The fact that the Western media focus primarily on deaths caused by sectarian violence and choose not to report - or are prevented from reporting - deaths caused by aerial bombardments by coalition forces is why many people have such a skewed idea of what's happening. Read on...
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/4533
'...out of 58 incidents involving a minimum of 10 or more Iraqi civilian deaths just one was attributed to the 'coalition'. We then searched for incidents citing less than a minimum of 10 deaths involving 'coalition' airstrikes, helicopter gunfire and tank fire, we found three references in the six-month period we examined totalling 15 civilians killed:
"k997 13 Mar 2005 - Mosul 'insurgents' firing on helicopter, civilians killed in return fire helicopter fire 3 [killed]" (http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/b ... 1137415112)
"k1357 19 May 2005 12:00 PM Mosul attack by gunmen on house of National Assembly member Fawwaz al-Jarba, US troops also involved gunfire, helicopter gunfire 8 [killed]" (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database/b ... 1137487725)
This struck us as frankly remarkable. In the December 2005 edition of the New Yorker, journalist Seymour Hersh reported a US Air Force press release indicating that, since the beginning of the conflict, the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing alone had dropped more than 500,000 tons of ordnance on Iraq.
In December 2005, Associated Press reported that the US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps had "flown thousands of missions in support of US ground troops in Iraq this fall with little attention back home, including attacks by unmanned Predator aircraft armed with Hellfire missiles, military records show". ('Air Power Strikes Iraq Targets Daily,' Associated Press, December 20, 2005)
The aircraft included frontline attack planes. The number of airstrikes increased in the weeks leading up to the December 2005 election, from a monthly average of 25 in the first half of the year to more than 60 in September and 120 or more in October and November. The monthly number of air missions grew from 1,111 in September to 1,492 in November.
And yet, when we checked, the first 18 pages of the IBC database, covering the period between July 2005 and January 2006, contained just six references to helicopter attacks and airstrikes killing civilians.
What do these figures tell us about the sincerity and honesty of the IBC editors? Absolutely nothing - it is not at all our intention to challenge their integrity. But there are some important points that need to be made.
First, the dramatic absence of examples of mass killing by US-UK forces suggests that the low IBC toll of civilian deaths in comparison with other studies is partly explained by the fact that examples of US-UK killing are simply not being reported by the media or recorded by IBC...'
I have said several times that IBC is flawed and underestimated.
so stop posting their nonsense.
its not nonsense. like I said, there is no 100% accurate source. all we can use is hard facts and research. which is something IBC does more accurately then any other source. you like to hold the one million number as fact ONLY because its a powerful round number. but in REALITY its a survey based on 0.000075% of the population.
I have said several times that IBC is flawed and underestimated.
so stop posting their nonsense.
its not nonsense. like I said, there is no 100% accurate source. all we can use is hard facts and research. which is something IBC does more accurately then any other source. you like to hold the one million number as fact ONLY because its a powerful round number. but in REALITY its a survey based on 0.000075% of the population.
"is partly explained by the fact that examples of US-UK killing are simply not being reported by the media or recorded by IBC...'"
don't compete; coexist
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
you would think one would cite an example that didn't use the words "At Least" in the heading ... there is no accuracy whatsoever in this one article ... how are they supposed to get an accurate number based on things like this?
you would think one would cite an example that didn't use the words "At Least" in the heading ... there is no accuracy whatsoever in this one article ... how are they supposed to get an accurate number based on things like this?
like I've said a thousand times...its nearly impossible to be 100% accurate when reporting deaths. this "at least" number means its probably in the range 11-30 maybe?
but based on that should be assume 10,000 died? no.
you would think one would cite an example that didn't use the words "At Least" in the heading ... there is no accuracy whatsoever in this one article ... how are they supposed to get an accurate number based on things like this?
like I've said a thousand times...its nearly impossible to be 100% accurate when reporting deaths. this "at least" number means its probably in the range 11-30 maybe?
but based on that should be assume 10,000 died? no.
how can you say in 1 post you are giving "facts" and in another say it's impossible to be 100% accurate???
don't compete; coexist
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
you would think one would cite an example that didn't use the words "At Least" in the heading ... there is no accuracy whatsoever in this one article ... how are they supposed to get an accurate number based on things like this?
like I've said a thousand times...its nearly impossible to be 100% accurate when reporting deaths. this "at least" number means its probably in the range 11-30 maybe?
but based on that should be assume 10,000 died? no.
I'm just going by facts and sourced information, not surveys of 0.000075% of the population.
well over 100,000 people have died as a result of this war. according to the facts, probably as much as 300-500,000. but we can't and shouldn't just pick a powerful number like one million and hold it as fact.
but you can hold yours as fact, eh?
don't compete; coexist
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
how can you say in 1 post you are giving "facts" and in another say it's impossible to be 100% accurate???
its a fact that at least 11 people died. thats the starting point. its not completely accurate because the report didn't know the entire total. but where does common sense come into play.
does it make more sense to say 11 to maybe even up to 50 people died?
how can you say in 1 post you are giving "facts" and in another say it's impossible to be 100% accurate???
its a fact that at least 11 people died. thats the starting point. its not completely accurate because the report didn't know the entire total. but where does common sense come into play.
does it make more sense to say 11 to maybe even up to 50 people died?
or just round up and say 1000 people died?
it would make more sense to say you don't know
i didn't know a fact could be "not completely accurate"
don't compete; coexist
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
you would think one would cite an example that didn't use the words "At Least" in the heading ... there is no accuracy whatsoever in this one article ... how are they supposed to get an accurate number based on things like this?
like I've said a thousand times...its nearly impossible to be 100% accurate when reporting deaths. this "at least" number means its probably in the range 11-30 maybe?
but based on that should be assume 10,000 died? no.
but this is one incident ... let's say the figures of those wounded - half of those die and there are others ... even if we use your range (11 - 30) ... that's almost 200% higher than the original tally ... now, multiply that out over the number of incidents and you start getting the discrepancies everyone sees ...
but this is one incident ... let's say the figures of those wounded - half of those die and there are others ... even if we use your rante ... that's almost 200% higher than the original tally ... now, multiply that out over the number of incidents and you start getting the discrepancies everyone sees ...
so its that easy to be off but 900,000? I don't think so. and not every single incident is off but 50 dead. I was using an extreme example.
you are making very big assumptions that every report is off by alot and that at least half the people die who are injured.
but this is one incident ... let's say the figures of those wounded - half of those die and there are others ... even if we use your rante ... that's almost 200% higher than the original tally ... now, multiply that out over the number of incidents and you start getting the discrepancies everyone sees ...
so its that easy to be off but 900,000? I don't think so. and not every single incident is off but 50 dead. I was using an extreme example.
you are making very big assumptions that every report is off by alot and that at least half the people die who are injured.
assumptions are not facts.
exactly, so the assumptions of your report are not a fact
don't compete; coexist
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
so its that easy to be off but 900,000? I don't think so. and not every single incident is off but 50 dead. I was using an extreme example.
you are making very big assumptions that every report is off by alot and that at least half the people die who are injured.
assumptions are not facts.
i'm not making any assumptions - i've never claimed to know the number ... my only point is that you can't use media reports to form any remotely accurage count ...
i'm not making any assumptions - i've never claimed to know the number ... my only point is that you can't use media reports to form any remotely accurage count ...
of course its remotely accurate. we know 11 people died. that is a fact. so take 11 dead and make an honest assumption about how many more people could have possibly died. its not 100%, but its as close as you can get to be accurate.
how is a survey of 1500 people out of a country of almost 30,000,000 remotely accurate?
'...Official and media criticism of Roberts's work has focused on the size of his sample, 988 homes in 33 clusters distributed throughout the country, but other epidemiologists reject the notion that this is controversial.
Michael O'Toole, the director of the Center for International Health in Australia, says: "That's a classical sample size. I just don't see any evidence of significant exaggeration.... If anything, the deaths may have been higher because what they are unable to do is survey families where everyone has died."[/color]
Roberts has also compared his work in Iraq to other epidemiological studies: "In 1993, when the US Centers for Disease Control randomly called 613 households in Milwaukee and concluded that 403,000 people had developed Cryptosporidium in the largest outbreak ever recorded in the developed world, no one said that 613 households was not a big enough sample. It is odd that the logic of epidemiology embraced by the press every day regarding new drugs or health risks somehow changes when the mechanism of death is their armed forces."
...Beyond the phony controversy regarding the methodology of the Lancet report, there is one issue that does cast doubt on its findings. This is the decision to exclude the cluster in Fallujah from its computations due to the much higher number of deaths that were reported there (even though the survey was completed before the widely reported assault on the city in November 2004). Roberts wrote, in a letter to the Independent, "Please understand how extremely conservative we were: we did a survey estimating that 285,000 people have died due to the first 18 months of invasion and occupation and we reported it as at least 100,000."...
A second feature of the epidemiologists' findings that has not been sufficiently explored is the one suggested above by Michael O'Toole. Since their report establishes that aerial assault and bombardment is the leading cause of violent death in Iraq and, since a direct hit by a 500 pound Mark 82 bomb will render most houses uninhabitable, any survey that disregards damaged, uninhabited houses is sure to underreport deaths. This should be taken into account by any follow-up studies...'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_sur ... casualties
'Ronald Waldman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University who worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for many years, called the survey method "tried and true," and added that "this is the best estimate of mortality we have."
In a letter to The Age, published Oct. 21, 2006, 27 epidemiologists and health professionals defended the methods of the study, writing that the study's "methodology is sound and its conclusions should be taken seriously."[5]
A Reuters article reports on other researchers, epidemiologists, professors, and physicians who have defended the study. For example; this quote from the article;
"Over the last 25 years, this sort of methodology has been used more and more often, especially by relief agencies in times of emergency," said Dr. David Rush, a professor and epidemiologist at Tufts University in Boston.[79]
Sir Richard Peto, Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology in the University of Oxford, described the 2006 report as "statistically valid" in an interview on BBC television.[80]
Dr. Ben Coghlan, an epidemiologist in Melbourne Australia, writes: "The US Congress should agree: in June this year [2006] they unanimously passed a bill outlining financial and political measures to promote relief, security and democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The bill was based in part on the veracity of a survey conducted by the Burnet Institute (Melbourne) and the International Rescue Committee (New York) that found 3.9 million Congolese had perished because of the conflict. This survey used the same methodology as Burnham and his associates. It also passed the scrutiny of a UK parliamentary delegation and the European Union."[81] Burnham is one of the authors of both of the Lancet studies.
An October 16, 2006 MediaLens article quotes many health experts, epidemiologists, biostatistics experts, polling experts, etc. who approve of the Lancet study and methodology.[82] For example:
John Zogby, whose New York-based polling agency, Zogby International, has done several surveys in Iraq since the war began, said: "The sampling is solid. The methodology is as good as it gets. It is what people in the statistics business do." ...
Professor Sheila Bird of the Biostatistics Unit at the Medical Research Council said: "They have enhanced the precision this time around and it is the only scientifically based estimate that we have got where proper sampling has been done and where we get a proper measure of certainty about these results."
of course its remotely accurate. we know 11 people died. that is a fact. so take 11 dead and make an honest assumption about how many more people could have possibly died. its not 100%, but its as close as you can get to be accurate.
how is a survey of 1500 people out of a country of almost 30,000,000 remotely accurate?
what is an honest assumption?
what if an incident isn't reported in any media?
what about the people that die from injuries after the incident is reported?
every source has their methodology of which each one can be picked thru easily ... there are no accurate numbers - to think otherwise does not make any common sense ...
Comments
3. Why is it so hard for people to believe the Lancet report?
I am an Iraqi and can assure you that the figure given is nearer to the truth than any given before or since.
S Kazwini, London, UK
LR: I think it is hard to accept these results for a couple of reasons. People do not see the bodies. While in the UK there are well over 1000 deaths a day, they do not see the bodies there either. Secondly, people feel that all those government officials and all those reporters must be detecting a big portion of the deaths. When in actuality during times of war, it is rare for even 20% to be detected. Finally, there has been so much media attention given to the surveillance-based numbers put out by the coalition forces, the Iraqi Government and a couple of corroborating groups, that a population-based number is a dramatic contrast.
6. As an analyst myself I would like to know how reliable the method itself actually is.
Les Roberts and his colleagues claim to have used the same method to estimate deaths in Iraq as is used to estimate deaths in natural disasters. Is there any evidence that the method is accurate? By this I mean a comparison of the number actual deaths after a natural disaster with estimates of the number of deaths.
Rickard Loe, Stockholm, Sweden
LR: That is a good question. There is a little evidence of which I am aware. Note that the 2004 and 2006 studies found similar results for the pre- and initial post-invasion period which at least implies reproducibility. I led a 30 cluster mortality survey in Kalima in the DRC in 2001. The relief organization Merlin did a nutritional survey and measured mortality in the same area and with a recall period that covered part of our survey. Both were cluster surveys, Merlin used a different technique to select houses and we obtained statistically identical results. In a couple of refugee settings, cluster surveys have produced similar estimates to grave monitoring.
In 1999, in Katana Health Zone in the Congo, I led a mortality survey where we walked a grid over the health zone and interviewed 41 clusters of 5 houses at 1km. spacings. In that survey, we estimated that 1,600 children had died of measles in the preceding half year. A couple of weeks later we did a standard immunization coverage survey (30 clusters of 7 children but selected totally proportional to population) that asked about measles deaths and we found an identical result.
I suspect that Demographic Health Surveys or the UNICEF MICS surveys (which are both retrospective cluster mortality approaches) have been calibrated against census data but I do not know when or where.
http://www.truthout.org/article/burying-lancet-report
'...After excluding any possible statistical anomalies, they estimated that at least 98,000 Iraqi civilians had died in the previous 18 months as a direct result of the invasion and occupation of their country. They also found that violence had become the leading cause of death in Iraq during that period. Their [The Lancet survey's] most significant finding was that the vast majority (79 percent) of violent deaths were caused by "coalition" forces using "helicopter gunships, rockets or other forms of aerial weaponry," and that almost half (48 percent) of these were children, with a median age of 8...'
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/4533
'...In the December 2005 edition of the New Yorker, journalist Seymour Hersh reported a US Air Force press release indicating that, since the beginning of the conflict, the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing alone had dropped more than 500,000 tons of ordnance on Iraq.
In December 2005, Associated Press reported that the US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps had "flown thousands of missions in support of US ground troops in Iraq this fall with little attention back home, including attacks by unmanned Predator aircraft armed with Hellfire missiles, military records show". ('Air Power Strikes Iraq Targets Daily,' Associated Press, December 20, 2005)
The aircraft included frontline attack planes. The number of airstrikes increased in the weeks leading up to the December 2005 election, from a monthly average of 25 in the first half of the year to more than 60 in September and 120 or more in October and November. The monthly number of air missions grew from 1,111 in September to 1,492 in November.
And yet, when we checked, the first 18 pages of the IBC database, covering the period between July 2005 and January 2006, contained just six references to helicopter attacks and airstrikes killing civilians.
What do these figures tell us about the sincerity and honesty of the IBC editors? Absolutely nothing - it is not at all our intention to challenge their integrity. But there are some important points that need to be made.
First, the dramatic absence of examples of mass killing by US-UK forces suggests that the low IBC toll of civilian deaths in comparison with other studies is partly explained by the fact that examples of US-UK killing are simply not being reported by the media or recorded by IBC...'
http://www.truthout.org/article/burying-lancet-report
'..this response to his work [...]stands in sharp contrast to the way the same governments responded to a similar study he led in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2000. In that case, he reported that about 1.7 million people had died during 22 months of war and, as he says, "Tony Blair and Colin Powell quoted those results time and time again without any question as to the precision or validity." In fact the UN Security Council promptly called for the withdrawal of foreign armies from the Congo and the US State Department cited his study in announcing a grant of $10 million for humanitarian aid.
Roberts conducted a follow-up study in the Congo that raised the fatality estimate to three million and Tony Blair cited that figure in his address to the 2001 Labor Party conference...'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_sur ... casualties
'...the same method was used by the US government following wars in Kosovo and Afghanistan. Roberts also said that the US government's Smart Initiative program is spending millions of dollars per year teaching NGOs and UN workers how to use the same cluster method for estimating mortality rates...
Ronald Waldman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University who worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for many years, called the survey method "tried and true," and added that "this is the best estimate of mortality we have."
In a letter to The Age, published Oct. 21, 2006, 27 epidemiologists and health professionals defended the methods of the study, writing that the study's "methodology is sound and its conclusions should be taken seriously."
The other type of survey is that of Iraq Body Count which relies on a handful of Western News Sources who are on the ground in Iraq. Spokesmen for Iraq Body Count have openly admitted that their methods are limited and that their numbers only reflect a fraction of the true numbers of Iraqi civilians killed.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/
'IBC pointed out, "it is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media... our own total is certain to be an underestimate of the true position, because of gaps in reporting or recording". (Iraq Body Count, Quick FAQ and Press Release, 7th November 2004.
The journalists working on the ground in Iraq whose reports of casualties are relied upon by IBC are restricted from visiting certain areas of Iraq and are even routinely threatened and attacked if they report casualty figures which aren't to the coalitions liking.
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/4533
'...newspapers and journalists in Iraq are punished, and even attacked, for publishing stories that reflect badly on the US-UK occupation? Veteran BBC broadcaster Nick Gowing said recently:
"The trouble is that a lot of the military - particularly the American military - do not want us there. And they make it very uncomfortable for us to work. And I think that this is leading to security forces in some instances feeling it is legitimate to target us with deadly force and with impunity." (Cited, Jeremy Scahill, 'Shooting the messenger,' February 17, 2005,http://www.thenation.com)
Another factor is that Iraq Body Count is surveillance based. According to Les Roberts from the Lancet surveillance based studies are "...always incomplete in times of war. The three lowest estimates are surveillance based."
'I think it is hard to accept these results for a couple of reasons. People do not see the bodies. While in the UK there are well over 1000 deaths a day, they do not see the bodies there either. Secondly, people feel that all those government officials and all those reporters must be detecting a big portion of the deaths. When in actuality during times of war, it is rare for even 20% to be detected. Finally, there has been so much media attention given to the surveillance-based numbers put out by the coalition forces, the Iraqi Government and a couple of corroborating groups, that a population-based number is a dramatic contrast.'
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/06/0610 ... author.php
Firstly, how many bodies would you expect to be left after a 5000 ton bomb has been dropped on a residential building?
Secondly, what bodies do remain are often buried within 24 hours as part of Muslim custom.
Thirdly, the Lancet report conducted house to house surveys and interviewed family members who may or may not have lost relatives. They were unable unable to conduct interviews with family members of famil'ys that had been completely wiped out.
Regarding the Lancet and ORB surveys 'A Reuters article reports on other researchers, epidemiologists, professors, and physicians who have defended the study. For example; this quote from the article;
"Over the last 25 years, this sort of methodology has been used more and more often, especially by relief agencies in times of emergency," said Dr. David Rush, a professor and epidemiologist at Tufts University in Boston.[79]
Sir Richard Peto, Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology in the University of Oxford, described the 2006 report as "statistically valid" in an interview on BBC television.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_sur ... casualties
Still, Jlew knows better. I wonder how many researchers the Gay Times has on the ground in Iraq conducting house-to-house surveys of civilian casualties?
I have said several times that IBC is flawed and underestimated. and I never said the total count was 100,000. I'm merely saying its far more accurate than one million. I'd even say 200-500k seems reasonable. but thats still far off 1 million. thats all I'm saying. people hear a nice round powerful number and take it as fact, no questions asked.
Some here in this country seem to have a hard time trying to fathom that our occupation of the country of Iraq could cause over a million deaths but I believe it's true. It has nothing to do a nice round figure of 1 million it has to do more with the many, many collateral damage a war of this magnitude over this many years can and will cause.
Peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
just because you believe it to be true doesn't mean it actually is. you are basically saying its possible, so it must be true. I'm just going by facts and sourced information, not surveys of 0.000075% of the population.
well over 100,000 people have died as a result of this war. according to the facts, probably as much as 300-500,000. but we can't and shouldn't just pick a powerful number like one million and hold it as fact.
The number of deaths doesn't matter.
The whole thing could have been avoided. Our bad decision was a bad decision whether 1 million people died or 1 hundred people died. It was the wrong decision, the wrong action that created this.
The whole thing could have been avoided.
Hail, Hail!!!
I disagree. I believe we should always strive for the truth and accuracy, especially when dealing with something as sensitive as the # of dead.
I agree with this. but it happened, so by accepting that fact, we should at least try and be as accurate as possible about reality.
Agreed. Accuracy and TRUTH is what we really need... but, never seem to get.
Hail, Hail!!!
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
so stop posting their nonsense.
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/4533
'...out of 58 incidents involving a minimum of 10 or more Iraqi civilian deaths just one was attributed to the 'coalition'. We then searched for incidents citing less than a minimum of 10 deaths involving 'coalition' airstrikes, helicopter gunfire and tank fire, we found three references in the six-month period we examined totalling 15 civilians killed:
"k815 16 Jan 2005 - Samarra civilian vehicle at checkpoint tank fire 4 [killed]" (http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/b ... 1137415170)
"k997 13 Mar 2005 - Mosul 'insurgents' firing on helicopter, civilians killed in return fire helicopter fire 3 [killed]" (http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/b ... 1137415112)
"k1357 19 May 2005 12:00 PM Mosul attack by gunmen on house of National Assembly member Fawwaz al-Jarba, US troops also involved gunfire, helicopter gunfire 8 [killed]" (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database/b ... 1137487725)
This struck us as frankly remarkable. In the December 2005 edition of the New Yorker, journalist Seymour Hersh reported a US Air Force press release indicating that, since the beginning of the conflict, the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing alone had dropped more than 500,000 tons of ordnance on Iraq.
In December 2005, Associated Press reported that the US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps had "flown thousands of missions in support of US ground troops in Iraq this fall with little attention back home, including attacks by unmanned Predator aircraft armed with Hellfire missiles, military records show". ('Air Power Strikes Iraq Targets Daily,' Associated Press, December 20, 2005)
The aircraft included frontline attack planes. The number of airstrikes increased in the weeks leading up to the December 2005 election, from a monthly average of 25 in the first half of the year to more than 60 in September and 120 or more in October and November. The monthly number of air missions grew from 1,111 in September to 1,492 in November.
And yet, when we checked, the first 18 pages of the IBC database, covering the period between July 2005 and January 2006, contained just six references to helicopter attacks and airstrikes killing civilians.
What do these figures tell us about the sincerity and honesty of the IBC editors? Absolutely nothing - it is not at all our intention to challenge their integrity. But there are some important points that need to be made.
First, the dramatic absence of examples of mass killing by US-UK forces suggests that the low IBC toll of civilian deaths in comparison with other studies is partly explained by the fact that examples of US-UK killing are simply not being reported by the media or recorded by IBC...'
its not nonsense. like I said, there is no 100% accurate source. all we can use is hard facts and research. which is something IBC does more accurately then any other source. you like to hold the one million number as fact ONLY because its a powerful round number. but in REALITY its a survey based on 0.000075% of the population.
"is partly explained by the fact that examples of US-UK killing are simply not being reported by the media or recorded by IBC...'"
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
there is no proof of that. the media reports death tolls of air strikes all the time.
for example..
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/04/ ... index.html
you would think one would cite an example that didn't use the words "At Least" in the heading ... there is no accuracy whatsoever in this one article ... how are they supposed to get an accurate number based on things like this?
like I've said a thousand times...its nearly impossible to be 100% accurate when reporting deaths. this "at least" number means its probably in the range 11-30 maybe?
but based on that should be assume 10,000 died? no.
how can you say in 1 post you are giving "facts" and in another say it's impossible to be 100% accurate???
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
you've said a thousand times??
but you can hold yours as fact, eh?
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
its a fact that at least 11 people died. thats the starting point. its not completely accurate because the report didn't know the entire total. but where does common sense come into play.
does it make more sense to say 11 to maybe even up to 50 people died?
or just round up and say 1000 people died?
it would make more sense to say you don't know
i didn't know a fact could be "not completely accurate"
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
but this is one incident ... let's say the figures of those wounded - half of those die and there are others ... even if we use your range (11 - 30) ... that's almost 200% higher than the original tally ... now, multiply that out over the number of incidents and you start getting the discrepancies everyone sees ...
so its that easy to be off but 900,000? I don't think so. and not every single incident is off but 50 dead. I was using an extreme example.
you are making very big assumptions that every report is off by alot and that at least half the people die who are injured.
assumptions are not facts.
exactly, so the assumptions of your report are not a fact
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
the report is saying 11 people died. that is not an assumption.
i'm not making any assumptions - i've never claimed to know the number ... my only point is that you can't use media reports to form any remotely accurage count ...
of course its remotely accurate. we know 11 people died. that is a fact. so take 11 dead and make an honest assumption about how many more people could have possibly died. its not 100%, but its as close as you can get to be accurate.
how is a survey of 1500 people out of a country of almost 30,000,000 remotely accurate?
'...Official and media criticism of Roberts's work has focused on the size of his sample, 988 homes in 33 clusters distributed throughout the country, but other epidemiologists reject the notion that this is controversial.
Michael O'Toole, the director of the Center for International Health in Australia, says: "That's a classical sample size. I just don't see any evidence of significant exaggeration.... If anything, the deaths may have been higher because what they are unable to do is survey families where everyone has died."[/color]
Roberts has also compared his work in Iraq to other epidemiological studies: "In 1993, when the US Centers for Disease Control randomly called 613 households in Milwaukee and concluded that 403,000 people had developed Cryptosporidium in the largest outbreak ever recorded in the developed world, no one said that 613 households was not a big enough sample. It is odd that the logic of epidemiology embraced by the press every day regarding new drugs or health risks somehow changes when the mechanism of death is their armed forces."
...Beyond the phony controversy regarding the methodology of the Lancet report, there is one issue that does cast doubt on its findings. This is the decision to exclude the cluster in Fallujah from its computations due to the much higher number of deaths that were reported there (even though the survey was completed before the widely reported assault on the city in November 2004). Roberts wrote, in a letter to the Independent, "Please understand how extremely conservative we were: we did a survey estimating that 285,000 people have died due to the first 18 months of invasion and occupation and we reported it as at least 100,000."...
A second feature of the epidemiologists' findings that has not been sufficiently explored is the one suggested above by Michael O'Toole. Since their report establishes that aerial assault and bombardment is the leading cause of violent death in Iraq and, since a direct hit by a 500 pound Mark 82 bomb will render most houses uninhabitable, any survey that disregards damaged, uninhabited houses is sure to underreport deaths. This should be taken into account by any follow-up studies...'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_sur ... casualties
'Ronald Waldman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University who worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for many years, called the survey method "tried and true," and added that "this is the best estimate of mortality we have."
In a letter to The Age, published Oct. 21, 2006, 27 epidemiologists and health professionals defended the methods of the study, writing that the study's "methodology is sound and its conclusions should be taken seriously."[5]
A Reuters article reports on other researchers, epidemiologists, professors, and physicians who have defended the study. For example; this quote from the article;
"Over the last 25 years, this sort of methodology has been used more and more often, especially by relief agencies in times of emergency," said Dr. David Rush, a professor and epidemiologist at Tufts University in Boston.[79]
Sir Richard Peto, Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology in the University of Oxford, described the 2006 report as "statistically valid" in an interview on BBC television.[80]
Dr. Ben Coghlan, an epidemiologist in Melbourne Australia, writes: "The US Congress should agree: in June this year [2006] they unanimously passed a bill outlining financial and political measures to promote relief, security and democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The bill was based in part on the veracity of a survey conducted by the Burnet Institute (Melbourne) and the International Rescue Committee (New York) that found 3.9 million Congolese had perished because of the conflict. This survey used the same methodology as Burnham and his associates. It also passed the scrutiny of a UK parliamentary delegation and the European Union."[81] Burnham is one of the authors of both of the Lancet studies.
An October 16, 2006 MediaLens article quotes many health experts, epidemiologists, biostatistics experts, polling experts, etc. who approve of the Lancet study and methodology.[82] For example:
John Zogby, whose New York-based polling agency, Zogby International, has done several surveys in Iraq since the war began, said: "The sampling is solid. The methodology is as good as it gets. It is what people in the statistics business do." ...
Professor Sheila Bird of the Biostatistics Unit at the Medical Research Council said: "They have enhanced the precision this time around and it is the only scientifically based estimate that we have got where proper sampling has been done and where we get a proper measure of certainty about these results."
what is an honest assumption?
what if an incident isn't reported in any media?
what about the people that die from injuries after the incident is reported?
every source has their methodology of which each one can be picked thru easily ... there are no accurate numbers - to think otherwise does not make any common sense ...