Study puts Iraqi toll at 100,000 [article]

Memnoch

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/29/iraq.deaths/index.html

While the researchers said the risk of death was 2.5 times more likely after the invasion, they conceded that the risk was 1.5 times higher if mortality around Falluja was excluded.

He added that the study's central observation -- that more civilians have died following air strikes -- is convincing.

"With the admitted benefit of hindsight and from a purely public-health perspective, it is clear that whatever planning did take place was grievously in error," said Horton.

"Democratic imperialism has led to more deaths not fewer. This political and military failure continues to cause scores of casualties among non-combatants. It is a failure that deserves to be a serious subject for research."

Even though the sample size appears small, this type of survey is considered accurate and acceptable by scientists and was used to calculate war deaths in Kosovo in the late 1990s, AP reported.

what can I say?

But i'm sure the pro-war crowd will harp on about how much "better" it is "without Saddam"

TBH I'm really sick of the hypocritical western mindset that is perfectly happy to sacrifice the lives of other people for their own ideas/agendas.

Just because saddam killed xxxx people is it okay for the US to kill 100,000? One murder of an innocent justyfing another murder of an innocent?

Ivan

Surely if they are more likely to be killed AFTER the invasion, any possible reason for invading is thus negated?

No WMD, more deaths after invasion, American troops abroad being killed. Alienated allies, Creating more martyrs/terrorists, stealing jobs/money from the Iraqi's, making American corporations even richer.

All in the name of Freedom. God bless America.

bonkey

Ivan wrote:

Surely if they are more likely to be killed AFTER the invasion, any possible reason for invading is thus negated?

Well no...the defence would be that things will get better, and in many respects already are, and its only a matter of time before the mortality rate drops again to levels of ontold goodness and happiness will ensue for all.

In fairness, there's a degree of logic to such a defence. The problem is that we've been told for nigh-on a year that things are already better, which makes one wonder by what yardstick this was measured.

jc

Ivan

With all due respect, but anyone who expects Bush to get America out of Iraq in the next 2-3 years is kidding themselves.
And while saying Saddam needed to be deposed is nice and all, invasion was not the only method possible. The fact that it has directly increased the loss of life, should put the final nail in Bush's administrations coffin. Sadly, it wont. Will the American people even see these stats. If they do, will they understand and interpret them correctly. What, if any meaning will they get from them?

Rock Climber

But Richard Peto, who is professor of medical statistics at Oxford University, cautioned AP the researchers may have zoned in on hotspots that might not be representative of the death toll across Iraq.

A bit like surveying northern Ireland for deaths during the height of the troubles and declaring the results as being valid for the whole of the UK...

Of course theres deaths galore now but this is in part due to obstinancy.
On the One hand by the coalition who have got rid of Saddam but haven't arranged talks NI style with the worst of it's enemies there,secondly by the foreign and other insurgents there who could do likewise and thirdly by the rest of the world who should be getting involved on a massive scale* to facilitate an end to this.

* troops maybe but talks with insurgents yes.
Meanwhile in other news regarding hundreds of thousands of deaths and associated misery... Darfor anyone??

Sparks

Of course theres deaths galore now but this is in part due to obstinancy.

Indeed? If someone invaded my country and deposed Bertie, I'd be somewhat relieved, but I'd still want them gone - if they turned about and signed legally binding contracts selling off entire public sectors to foreign investors and appointed a government led by the kind of person you'd be happier seeing in jail for life, well, then I might get obstinate as well!

On the hotspots argument, I noticed they left out fallujah - because if they hadn't, the total would have been closer to 200,000. So there was some monitoring of whether or not the sample was representative. Mind you, I don't recall too many pro-war activists making the criticism of the samples' representativeness when that Gallup poll was conducted in Baghdad saying that the majority thought it was a great thing alltogether to be invaded...

bonkey

Ivan wrote:

With all due respect, but anyone who expects Bush to get America out of Iraq in the next 2-3 years is kidding themselves.

Oh I fully agree. And I'd go further and say I don't expect to see significant improvement in Iraq within the next Presidency in the US regardless of who is President.

But the "it takes time" excuse will remain the defence for how bad things are, and there will be plenty who will accept this without considering that time doesn't automatically ensure things will get better.

jc

Villain

Theres also 400 tons of explosives floating about, so I'd imagine that toll will grow a lot in the next 12 months.

Gurgle

So, in the war on terror we have:

Terrorists < 10,000, including absolutely every single death in the last 5 years that can be attributed to anyone the US identify as a terrorist. That includes the deaths of US and Brittish soldiers on the crusades.

Anti-Terror coalition > 100,000

Hey, they are winning the war on terror.
Yippeee

[/sarcasm]

Hobbes

100,000 dead.. but they aren't Americans, so thats ok then :rolleyes:

Capt'n Midnight

I can't find a more authoritive site that contained the link to 10,000,000 cilivians killed by the US military since WWII

http://www.world-action.co.uk/horrified.html
http://www.nd.edu/~observer/04302002/Viewpoint/0.html

In the name of freedom and democracy, economic sanctions were imposed on Iraq that have in turn caused the starvation of over one million Iraqi children.

In the name of justice, over 8,000 Panamanians were killed in an attempt to capture Manuel Noreiga.

In the name of freedom and democracy, 4 million people were bombed, napalmed and killed in Indochina (i.e. Vietnam and Korea) between 1954 and 1975.

In the name of justice, the "War on Terror" has claimed the lives of many innocent Afghani people — the same people we intend to save from the clenches of the Taliban. The truth of the matter is that the U.S. foreign policy of the 20th and 21st centuries is tainted with inhumanity and injustice. It is estimated that over 8 million people have been killed by U.S. military action since World War II ("Another World is Possible," Kim et al.).

In 1996, the U.S. was shocked to find that two of our own would be cowardly enough to destroy countless lives in Oklahoma City. The country was left with unanswered questions of how and why this was done. Despite the anger, a lawful search, seizure and arrest process was followed until the two men were captured and convicted. Five years later, in the midst of another terrorist attack, no lawful searches, seizures or arrests have taken place; action was taken promptly though. Our government has assumed the roles of judge, jury and executioner with minimal opposition calling for a morality check.

Again compare the due process of law taken after Oklahoma and the invasion of Iraq even though most of those resposible were from Saudai Arabia.

Victor

irish1 wrote:

Theres also 400 tons of explosives floating about, so I'd imagine that toll will grow a lot in the next 12 months.

Small change in the scheme of things.*

*now if you put these fancy high-teche explosives together with about 16kg of uranium ....or make it into 400,000 grenades

mike65

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/29/1098992259829.html?oneclick=true

To conduct the survey, investigators visited 33 neighbourhood spread evenly across the country in September, randomly selecting clusters of 30 households to sample. Of the 988 households visited, 808, consisting of 7,868 people, agreed to participate in the survey. At each one they asked how many people lived in the home and how many births and deaths there had been since January 2002.

The scientists then compared death rates in the 15 months before the invasion with those that occurred during the 18 months after the attack and adjusted those numbers to account for the different time periods.

Even though the sample size appears small, this type of survey is considered accurate and acceptable by scientists and was used to calculate war deaths in Kosovo in the late 1990s.

The investigators worked in teams of three. Five of the six Iraqi interviewers were doctors and all six were fluent in English and Arabic.

In the households reporting deaths, the person who died had to be living there at the time of the death and for more than two months before to be counted. In an attempt at firmer confirmation, the interviewers asked for death certificates in 78 households and were provided them 63 times.

There were 46 deaths in the surveyed households before the war. After the invasion, there were 142 deaths. That is an increase from 5 deaths per 1,000 people per year to 12.3 per 1,000 people per year - more than double.

However, more than a third of the post-invasion deaths were reported in one cluster of households in the city Fallujah, where fighting has been most intense recently. Because the fighting was so severe there, the numbers from that location may have exaggerated the overall picture.

When the researchers recalculated the effect of the war without the statistics from Fallujah, the deaths end up at 7.9 per 1,000 people per year - still 1.5 times higher than before the war.

Even with Fallujah factored out, the survey "indicates that the death toll associated with the invasion and occupation of Iraq is more likely than not about 100,000 people, and may be much higher," the report said.

The most common causes of death before the invasion of Iraq were heart attacks, strokes and other chronic diseases. However, after the invasion, violence was recorded as the primary cause of death and was mainly attributed to coalition forces - with about 95 per cent of those deaths caused by bombs or fire from helicopter gunships.

Violent deaths - defined as those brought about by the intentional act of others - were reported in 15 of the 33 clusters. The chances of a violent death were 58 times higher after the invasion than before it, the researchers said.

Twelve of the 73 violent deaths were not attributed to coalition forces. The researchers said 28 children were killed by coalition forces in the survey households. Infant mortality rose from 29 deaths per 1,000 live births before the war to 57 deaths per 1,000 afterward.

The researchers estimated the nationwide death toll due to the conflict by multiplying the difference between the two death rates by the estimated population of Iraq - 24.4 million at the start of the war. The result was then multiplied by 18 months, the average period between the invasion and the survey interviews.

"We estimate that there were 98,000 extra deaths during the postwar period in the 97 per cent of Iraq represented by all the clusters except Fallujah," the researchers said in the journal.

As for the merits of the war, thats a slightly different matter - the USA did a brilliant job getting rid of Saddam but have completely fvcked up the, er peace.

Mike.