1.2 Million Iraqis killed in war

14. A recent Science Magazine article stated that Gilbert Burnham (one of your co-authors) didn't know how Iraqis on survey team conducted their work. The article also claimed that raw data was destroyed to protect the safety of interviewees. Is this true?

LR: These statements are simply not true; and do not reflect anything said by Gilbert Burnham! He's submitted a letter to the editors of Science in response, which I hope they will print.

15. A UNDP study carried out survey 13 months after the war that had a much higher sample size than both Lancet studies and found about 1/3 the numbers of deaths that your team has found. Given the much higher sample size shouldn't we assume the UNDP study was more accurate and that therefore your numbers are way too high?

LR: The UNDP study was much larger, was led by the highly revered Jon Pederson at Fafo in Norway, but was not focused on mortality. His group conducted interviews about living conditions, which averaged about 82 minutes, and recorded many things. Questions about deaths were asked, and if there were any, there were a couple of follow-up questions.

A) I suspect that Jon's mortality estimate was not complete. I say this because the overall non-violent mortality estimate was, I am told, very low compared to our 5.0 and 5.5/ 1000 /year estimates for the pre-war period which many critics (above) claim seems too low. Jon sent interviewers back after the survey was over to the same interviewed houses and asked just about <5 year old deaths. The same houses reported ~50% more deaths the second time around. In our surveys, we sent medical doctors who asked primarily about deaths. Thus, I think we got more complete reporting.

This UNDP survey covered about 13 months after the invasion. Our first survey recorded almost twice as many violent deaths from the 13th to the 18th months after the invasion as it did during the first 12 (see figure 2 in the 2004 Lancet article). The second survey found an excess rate of 2/1000/year over the same period corresponding to approximately 55,000 deaths by April of 2004(see table 3 of 2006 Lancet article). Thus, the rates of violent death recorded in the two survey groups are not so divergent.
Les Roberts Responds To Steven Moore Of The Wall Street Journal

Moore's editorial can be read here: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110009108

Distinction between criticism and fabrication regarding deaths in Iraq

I read with interest the October 18th editorial by Steven Moore reviewing our study reporting that an estimated 650,000 deaths were associated with the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq. I had spoken with Mr. Moore the week before when he said that he was writing something for the Wall Street Journal to put this survey in perspective. I am not surprised that we differed on the current relevance of 10 year-old census data in a country that had experienced a major war and mass exodus.

I am not surprised at his rejection of my suggestion that the references in a web report explaining the methodology for lay people and reporters was not the same as the references in our painstakingly written peer reviewed article. What is striking is Mr. Moore's statement that we did not collect any demographic data, and his implication that this makes the report suspect.

This is curious because, not only did I tell him that we asked about the age and gender of the living residents in the houses we visited, but Mr. Moore and I discussed, verbally and by e-mail, his need to contact the first author of the paper, Gilbert Burnham, in order to acquire this information as I did not have the raw data. I would assume that this was simply a case of multiple misunderstandings except our first report in the Lancet in 2004 referenced in our article as describing the methods states, ".interviewees were asked for the age and sex or every current household member."

Thus, it appears Mr. Moore had not read the description of the methods in our reports. It is not important whether this fabrication that "no demographic data was collected" is the result of subconscious need to reject the results or whether it was intentional deception. What is important, is that Mr. Moore and many others are profoundly uncomfortable that our government might have inadvertently triggered 650,000 deaths.

Most days in the US, more than 5000 people die. We do not see the bodies. We cannot, from our household perspective, sense the fraction from violence. We rely on a functional governmental surveillance network to do that for us. No such functional network exists in Iraq. Our report suggests that on top of the 300 deaths that must occur in Iraq each day from natural causes; there have been approximately 500 "extra" deaths mostly from violence.

Of any high profile scientific report in recent history, ours might be the easiest to verify. If we are correct, in the morgues and graveyards of Iraq, most deaths during the occupation would have been due to violence. If Mr. Bush's "30,000 more or less" figure from last December is correct, less than 1 in 10 deaths has been from violence. Let us address the discomfort of Mr. Moore and millions of other Americans, not by uninformed speculation about epidemiological techniques, but by having the press travel the country and tell us how people are dying in Iraq.

jlew24asu wrote:

sorry I dont find it to be accurate. no matter how long your replies of cutting and pasting are.

So you're an expert on these surveys are you? Did you even read the article above? The figures they have come up with are 'conservative estimates', but because you know better, the figures must be exagerrated, right?

PaperPlates wrote:

How many of those deaths were at the hands of fellow iraqi's?

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/sep2007/orb-s15.shtml
'The survey found that 48 percent of the violent deaths were due to gunshot wounds, 20 percent to car bombs, 9 percent to aerial bombardment, 6 percent to other ordnance or explosions, and 6 percent to accidents.

The figure for aerial bombardments is particularly noteworthy since such deaths—numbering well over 100,000 according to the ORB study—go virtually unreported in the American media. This is doubtless because such killings are entirely the work of the US and British occupation forces, the only ones equipped with helicopters and warplanes.'