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Title: British Backtrack on Iraq death toll
Source: Independent
URL Source: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2396031.ece
Published: Mar 27, 2007
Author: Jill Lawless
Post Date: 2007-03-27 06:38:41 by Ada
Keywords: None
Views: 24722
Comments: 394

British government officials have backed the methods used by scientists who concluded that more than 600,000 Iraqis have been killed since the invasion, the BBC reported yesterday.

The Government publicly rejected the findings, published in The Lancet in October. But the BBC said documents obtained under freedom of information legislation showed advisers concluded that the much-criticised study had used sound methods.

The study, conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, estimated that 655,000 more Iraqis had died since March 2003 than one would expect without the war. The study estimated that 601,027 of those deaths were from violence.

The researchers, reflecting the inherent uncertainties in such extrapolations, said they were 95 per cent certain that the real number of deaths lay somewhere between 392,979 and 942,636.

The conclusion, based on interviews and not a body count, was disputed by some experts, and rejected by the US and British governments. But the chief scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defence, Roy Anderson, described the methods used in the study as "robust" and "close to best practice". Another official said it was "a tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones".

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 20.

#4. To: Ada, ALL (#0)

British government officials have backed the methods

But only one name is given. Who are the others?

But the chief scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defence, Roy Anderson, described the methods used in the study as "robust" and "close to best practice".

Did he address any of these concerns? No?

Well then, ping me when he does.

In fact, ping me if the full text of his "memo" is ever available.

******************

1. The 655,000 estimate is many, many times larger than any other estimate out there (and there are about half a dozen others). Those other estimates were more like 50,000 at the time the John Hopkins study was published. Are they all wrong and only John Hopkins right? Even various anti-war groups such as Human Rights Watch and IraqBodyCount have indicated the John Hopkins' figures are outlandish. So why are FD4UMers so voraciously defending JH's estimates?

2. The report and the peer reviewer of the report (the Lancet) ignored a major discrepancy between the pre-war mortality estimate derived by the John Hopkins team and the estimates derived by other organizations such as the UN and WHO. The UN and WHO, in largers studies, came up with rates between 7-8 per 1000 per year compared to the John Hopkins rate of 5-5.5 per 1000 per year. And these larger rates were estimates that the Lancet had previously endorsed as accurate. This pre-war mortality number is one of the key numbers used in determining excess deaths. If it were as high as the UN and WHO found, then the number of excess deaths would be far less, perhaps a tenth as much.

3. A recent UN Development Program study, http://www.iq.undp.org/ILCS/PDF/Analytical%20Report%20-%20English.pdf, states that there were 24,000 war-related deaths (18,000-29,000, with a 95% confidence level) during the time covered by the Hopkins report. This is approximately ONE-FOURTH the number of excess deaths that Les Roberts' 2004 John Hopkins study found. And the UN used similar techniques - clusters, etc. - but with a much larger data set than John Hopkins. Why is there no mention of this study in the lastest John Hopkin's report (which claims its results verify the first JH report)? Why was this discrepancy not addressed by the Lancet *peer* reviewers?

4. According to the latest John Hopkins report, 92 percent of those who claimed deaths in their families (501 out of 545) were able to provide death certificates to prove it. Therefore, if the study is statistically valid, there should be death certificates available for about 92 percent of the total 655,000 estimated dead. But investigations by media sources that are not friendly to the Bush administration or the war have not found evidence of anywhere near that number. The Los Angeles Times, for example, in a comprehensive investigation found less than 50,000 certificates. Even if that investigation were off a factor of two, there is still a huge discrepancy. To take the Johns Hopkins results seriously, you have to believe that the Iraqi government recorded deaths occurring since the invasion with an accuracy of 92 percent, but then suppressed the bulk of those deaths when releasing official figures, with no one blowing the whistle. And you have to believe that all those dead bodies went unnoticed by the mainstream media and everyone else trying to keep track of the war casualties. Alternatively, you have to believe that the Iraqi government only issues death certificates for a small percentage of deaths, but this random sample happened to get 92 percent by pure chance.

5. A principle author of both John Hopkins studies, Les Roberts, has publically stated he disliked Bush (not unexpected given that he is an active democRAT) and the war. He has admitted that he released the study when he did to negatively influence the election against Bush and the GOP. And he has admitted that most of those he hired to conduct the study in Iraq "HATE" (that was his word) the Americans. None of that is a good basis for conducting a non-partisan study.

6. Nor is the behavior of the Lancet. They've not only failed to ask important questions during their *peer* reviews, they admit they greatly abbreviated that peer review process for the 2004 report so the results could be published in time to influence the 2004 election. They also reported on their own website in 2004, that the deaths estimated by John Hopkins were comprised solely of civilians. But the study made no such claim. In fact, it clearly states that the investigators did not ask those interviewed if the dead were civilians, Saddam military or insurgents. Which leads one to wonder if the Lancet actually read the report they claimed to review.

7. When media interviewers of the lead researchers completely misrepresented the results (for example, calling all the dead "civilians"), those researchers (one being Les Robert) made no effort to correct those falsehoods. And they went on to lie, both directly and by omission, about the methodology they used. This is indisputable. For example, here is what another of the John Hopkins researchers, Richard Garfield, told an interviewer: "First of all, very few people refused or were unable to take part in the sample, to our surprise most people had death certificates and we were able to confirm most of the deaths we investigated." That is a LIE since the first study (which is what he was talking about) indicates they only confirmed 7% of the deaths. And Les Roberts did the exact same thing in another interview.

8. In the Garfield interview mentioned above, he stated "And here you see that deaths recorded in the Baghdad morgue were, for a long period, around 200 per month." Let me repeat that figure ... 200 A MONTH, in one of the most populated and most violent regions in the country during the time in question. And now Les Roberts is asking us to believe that 15,000 (on average) were dying each month in the country since the war began. How could Garfield not have questions about this new estimate given his previous statement?

9. Richard Garfield is another of those who advocated mortality statistics before the war that are widely divergent from those derived using the Les Roberts/John Hopkins interviews. In fact, Richard Garfield said the most probable number of deaths of under-five children from August 1991 to June 2002 would be about 400,000. His *expert* opinion was that the rate in 2002 would was 9-10 percent. That is compared to the Les Robert's estimate of 2.9 percent. So why didn't Roberts or Garfield address this disparity? And note that the Lancet blessed and championed the conclusions of Garfield back in 2002. So why did they ignore the discrepancy during their peer review of Les Roberts' study?

10. There is NO physical evidence whatsoever to support the claim that 655,000 Iraqis were killed from the beginning of the war to mid 2006. There are no killing fields filled with bodies or mass graves. There are no photos of these mountains of bodies. There are no videos of this slaughter or the funerals afterwords. There are no reporters, of ANY nationality, saying they saw these bodies or the slaughter. There are no US or foreign soldiers providing evidence of such a slaughter. There is NO physical evidence.

11. Dahr Jamail is an example of the above. He is viralently anti-American. He has close ties to the insurgents and arabs. So look on his website ( http://dahrjamailiraq.com/) for any indication that 500, much less 100 Iraqis were dying every single day on average back in 2003 and 2004 when he first started reporting from Iraq, which was during the period covered by not only the second but the first John Hopkins study. You won't find any indication.

12. Last year was arguably the most violent since the invasion. Yet even the Iraqis reported the number killed was on the order of 16,000 in that year ... an average of 45 a day. That certainly stands in sharp constrast to the John Hopkins researchers (and their proponents) who claim that more than 500 a day have died every day on average since the invasion began.

13. But the discrepancy is even worse than that. As noted by the author of this blog, http://www.claytoncramer.com/weblog/2006_10_08_archive.html#116069912405842066, "The claim is 654,965 excess deaths caused by the war from March 2003 through July 2006. That's 40 months, or 1200 days, so an average of 546 deaths per day. To get an average of 546 deaths per day means that there must have been either many hundreds of days with 1000 or more deaths per day (example: 200 days with 1000 deaths = 200,000 dead leaves 1000 days with an average of 450 deaths), or tens of days with at least 10,000 or more deaths per day (example: 20 days with 10,000 deaths = 200,000 dead leaves 1180 days with an average of 381 deaths). So, where are the news accounts of tens of days with 10,000 or more deaths?"

14. The number of dead the John Hopkins methodology gives in Fallujah is so staggering that even the John Hopkins researchers had to discard the data point. Yet in interviews, Les Roberts has responded as if the Fallujah data was accurate. For example, in an interview with Socialist Workers Online (note who he uses to get his message out), when asked why two thirds of all violent deaths were concentrated in this city, Les Roberts didn't respond "the data was wrong or atypical in Fallujah" as it states in his report. No, instead he answered the question as if he thought the data point was representative of what happened in Fallujah as a whole. He said "we think that our findings, if anything, underestimated the number of deaths because of the number of empty and destroyed houses." Then why didn't they keep the Fallujah data point?

15. John Hopkins claims "We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654,965 (392,979 - 942,636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2.5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601,027 (426,369 - 793,663) were due to violence, the most common cause being gun fire." But during World War II, the Allied air forces carpet bombed German cities, using high explosives and incendiaries, and according to The United States Strategic Bombing Survey Summary Report killed an estimated 305,000. So are we to believe that with gun fire rather than bombs, twice as many Iraqis have been killed in the last 3 years, as died in all Germany during WW2 due to strategic bombing of cities which completely flattened entire cities? Likewise, Japan had about 2 million citizens killed (about 2.7 percent of their population), both military and civilian. Many Japanese cities were firebombed during that war (for example, Tokyo had 100,000 people killed in just one raid). Two cities were attacked with nuclear weapons. And yet Les Roberts and his crew want us to believe that just as large a percentage have died in Iraq ... where the Coalition has gone out of its way to avoid civilian deaths?

****************

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-03-27   20:16:38 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

According to the latest John Hopkins report, 92 percent of those who claimed deaths in their families (501 out of 545) were able to provide death certificates to prove it. Therefore, if the study is statistically valid, there should be death certificates available for about 92 percent of the total 655,000 estimated dead. But investigations by media sources that are not friendly to the Bush administration or the war have not found evidence of anywhere near that number. The Los Angeles Times, for example, in a comprehensive investigation found less than 50,000 certificates. Even

Still repeating your bull-chit after being whacked on the other thread, BeASpammer?

(1) 87% x 92% is 80%, not 92%

(2) The LA Times number of 50,000 only counted totals from one morgue - the Baghdad morgue - and Health Ministry numbers which omitted an entire year and didn't count entire provinces and several of the more violent cities.

(3) Doctors in Iraq can write death certificates, not only hospitals and morgues.

AGAviator  posted on  2007-03-29   2:57:02 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

(1) 87% x 92% is 80%, not 92%

And explanation for those who don't know:

The researchers asked 87% of those claiming deaths to supply death certificates. The researchers claimed that 92% of them were able to do so. The researchers said that in the other 13% of the cases they simply FORGOT to ask. That they simply FORGOT to ask implies that the folks they asked were a RANDOM sample from amongst all those claiming deaths. That being the case, the percentage of folks who supposedly would have been able to supply death certificates in the group of 13% who they FORGOT to ask should be about the same as in the group of 87% they did ask. In which case, the John Hopkins claim does indeed suggest that 92% of those who claimed deaths had death certificates. Don't you understand statistical methodology, critter?

By the way, the vast majority of those death certificates are missing.

(2) The LA Times number of 50,000 only counted totals from one morgue - the Baghdad morgue

That is not true. The LATimes article stated ""The Health Ministry gathers numbers from hospitals in the capital and the outlying provinces. If a victim of violence dies at a hospital or arrives dead, medical officials issue a death certificate. Relatives claim the body directly from the hospital and arrange for a speedy burial in keeping with Muslim beliefs. If the morgue receives a body — usually those deemed suspicious deaths — officials there issue the death certificate. Health Ministry officials said that because death certificates are issued and counted separately, the two data sets are not overlapping. The Baghdad morgue received 30,204 bodies from 2003 through mid-2006, while the Health Ministry said it had documented 18,933 deaths from "military clashes" and "terrorist attacks" from April 5, 2004, to June 1, 2006. Together, the toll reaches 49,137."

and Health Ministry numbers which omitted an entire year

Irrelevant since the first John Hopkins study concluded that less than 100,000 of the 655,000 died in that first year and the second JH study concluded that the first study was basically correct. No matter how you spin it, critter, the vast majority of the death certificates from those 600,000 claiming deaths and supposedly able to supply death certificates are missing.

and didn't count entire provinces and several of the more violent cities.

Baghdad, by all accounts, is one of the most violent cities in the country and contains by far the largest population. The few other violent cities and provinces could not possibly account for the missing dead unless you wish to claim they've been greatly depopulated. Remember the calculation? That Anbar would have to have lost HALF of its total pre-war population just to account for 300,000 of the missing 550,000 death certificates. And contrary to what you've claimed in the past, the majority of the country is relatively peaceful. Kurdistan in particular.

There simply is no way to account for the claimed number of dead. As one blogger noted, "The claim is 654,965 excess deaths caused by the war from March 2003 through July 2006. That's 40 months, or 1200 days, so an average of 546 deaths per day. To get an average of 546 deaths per day means that there must have been either many hundreds of days with 1000 or more deaths per day (example: 200 days with 1000 deaths = 200,000 dead leaves 1000 days with an average of 450 deaths), or tens of days with at least 10,000 or more deaths per day (example: 20 days with 10,000 deaths = 200,000 dead leaves 1180 days with an average of 381 deaths). So, where are the news accounts of tens of days with 10,000 or more deaths?"

(3) Doctors in Iraq can write death certificates, not only hospitals and morgues.

Then name ONE doctor from Iraq who has come forward to say he wrote hundreds of death certificates and didn't report them to the Ministry of Health. Go ahead...

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-03-29   11:25:02 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

(1) 87% x 92% is 80%, not 92%

And explanation for those who don't know:

You don't *explain* how 87% x 92% is not 80%, dip-shit. It is, and it's basic math.

They asked 87% for certificates, and of that 87%, 92% said they had them. That's an 80% total.

By the way, the vast majority of those death certificates are missing.

Nobody at any time inside or outside of Iraq has ever said they're missing except you. They're not missing. You're lying.

(2) The LA Times number of 50,000 only counted totals from one morgue - the Baghdad morgue

That is not true. The LATimes article stated ""The Health Ministry gathers numbers from hospitals in the capital and the outlying provinces. If a victim of violence dies at a hospital or arrives dead, medical officials issue a death certificate.

The LA Times said

If the morgue receives a body — usually those deemed suspicious deaths — officials there issue the death certificate.

(1) The Baghdad morgue received 30,204 bodies from 2003 through mid-2006, while

(2) The Health Ministry said it had documented 18,933 deaths from "military clashes" and "terrorist attacks" from April 5, 2004, to June 1, 2006.

(3) Together, the toll reaches 49,137"

Adding up 30,024 from a single morgue - the Baghdad morgue - to the 2-year total of 18,933 violent deaths reported by the Health Ministry - which freely admitted it did not include many violent cities and several provinces - and you're already at 50,000.

and Health Ministry numbers which omitted an entire year

Irrelevant since the first John Hopkins study concluded that less than 100,000 of the 655,000 died in that first year

Baghdad, by all accounts, is one of the most violent cities in the country and contains by far the largest population. The few other violent cities and provinces could not possibly account for the missing dead unless you wish to claim they've been greatly depopulated.

Remember the calculation?

20 average excess violent deaths per day x 30 provinces x 3 years = 657,000 excess violent deaths.

Alternatively, 657,000 deaths in a population of 36,000,000 = 1.8% of the total.

And contrary to what you've claimed in the past, the majority of the country is relatively peaceful. Kurdistan in particular.

There simply is no way to account for the claimed number of dead. As one blogger noted, "The claim is 654,965 excess deaths caused by the war from March 2003 through July 2006. That's 40 months, or 1200 days, so an average of 546 deaths per day.

So, where are the news accounts of tens of days with 10,000 or more deaths?"

(3) Doctors in Iraq can write death certificates, not only hospitals and morgues.

Then name ONE doctor from Iraq who has come forward to say he wrote hundreds of death certificates and didn't report them to the Ministry of Health.

AGAviator  posted on  2007-03-30   2:01:37 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

BeAChooser, Iraq is a hellhole of Bush and Clinton's making. It has been depopulated - especially among Christians and others of the educated class fleeing for their lives.

Destro  posted on  2007-03-30   2:07:44 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

BeAChooser, Iraq is a hellhole of Bush and Clinton's making. It has been depopulated - especially among Christians and others of the educated class fleeing for their lives.

That may or may not be true. But in any case, that's not the depopulation that AGAviator and John Hopkins are claiming. They aren't talking about folks fleeing for their lives. They are claiming that hundreds of thousands were KILLED in certain regions of the country ... and noone noticed. Noone recorded that. Noone photographed it. Not even the insurgency which could have used such a horrific fact to force us out of the country via world opinion.

BeAChooser  posted on  2007-03-30   16:07:15 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

#22. To: BeAChooser, AGAviator (#20)

That may or may not be true. But in any case, that's not the depopulation that AGAviator and John Hopkins are claiming. They aren't talking about folks fleeing for their lives. They are claiming that hundreds of thousands were KILLED in certain regions of the country

Don't be disingenuous BeAChooser, you support the American mission in Iraq. So you run flak for it on here. That is fine - just be honest about it.

By the way - I am also leery of the numbers - because they are based on statistical projections. Statistical numbers used to determine deaths etc is bullshit as the late great Slobodan Milosevic showed in his cross examination during his kangaroo trial.

With that said - the death toll clearly is high in Iraq due to America's invasion and occupational aftermath.

I saw it coming - America could not stop (or did not wish to stop) Albanian Muslims from killing and driving out a quarter of a million Christian Serbs from Kosovo so I could not see how they would have prevented the rise in communal violence in Iraq from coming about. I used to laugh and fight vigorously with the idiot Bushbots on Freerepublic who kept bringing up Germany and Japan as reasons why Iraq would turn out the same.

Destro  posted on  2007-03-31 11:44:32 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

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