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| John's Hopkins Iraq Mortality Study: 655,000 Deaths Due To US-Led Invasion? |
| Thursday, October 12, 2006 |
An MIT/Johns Hopkins University study has been completed and published in the British medical journal, The Lancet that estimates that many as 654,965 more Iraqis may have died since hostilities began in Iraq in March 2003 and, thus implies that the deaths are related to the explosion of violence that followed the US-led invasion. This figure seems to be very high, is far in excess of any other estimate that I have seen published before. The conlcusions of the report are clearly presented in the key findings. The data may or may not be correct as the conclusions are drawn using a a survey and extrapolation method, yet, to date this is the most comprehensive study of the matter that I have seen anywhere and merits consideration.
Review of the Text:
The researchers summary of the study found on page 1 of the study, The Human Cost of War: A Mortality Study, 2002-2006. This is the origin of the big headlines that reads "655,000 more deaths" caused by the Iraq invasion. That is a tremendous amount of carnage and far more than 60,000 to 100,000 figures that I have found elsewehere. Yet, the page 1 summary of the report clearly states:
A new household survey of Iraq has found that approximately 600,000 people have been killed in the violence of the war that began with the U.S. invasion in March 2003. And page 7 of the same report states, and I quote:"...we estimate that through July 2006, there have been 654,965 excess deaths in Iraq as a consequence of the war from all causes..."
"Excess deaths can be further divided into those from violent and from non-violent causes. The vast majority of excess deaths were from violent causes. The excess deaths from violent causes were 7.2/1000. Applying this to the population we estimate that 601,027 were due to violent causes." Therefore, the report asserts that since the 2003 invasion approximately 654,965 more deaths from all causes have occured - that works out to: 196,686.2 excess deaths from all causes per year over a 3.33 year period (March 2003 to July 2006 - 40 months). The deaths are in addition to the base rate of deaths for the prior to the invasion was identified by the researchers to be 143,000 per year base upon survey data conducted for the 17 months prior to the invasion. The study found that upwards of 90% of the deaths were from violent causes. The researchers say that in nearly 92% of the individual cases, family members produced death certificates to support their answers.
This is admittedly, a statistically significant increase in mortality.
I must give credit to the researchers and respect to them the for the risks that were taken to study the matter. I have heard commentators attempt to dismiss the figure entirely and that is unfair and based on their responses in interviews it is glaringly apparent that they have not conducted any more comprehensive studies to refute the data. At present, the Iraqi government has no means of accurately keeping track of and segragating the death toll. It is indeed disturbing, that no agency or department or body is maintaining a deat toll considering the sheer volume of resource in the regions. It would seem to be critical to know these figures I order to assess the efficacy of the policy and to develop sound metrics for goals and objectives. There is one thing that have alway like about Rumsfeld is his desire to apply metrics and gather statistical data, this is an important are for him to exert his infuence to make the appropriate measurements.
President Bush and a number of right-wing described the results of the study as incredulous, yet even in their challenge to the factuality of the data, yet, without duplicating the study or conducting a series of studies using more rigorous method and larger sample sizes in more regions there is no way to absolutely disprove the results. Considering that the researchers observed death certifiacte for 92% of the dead reported, one might assert that this introduces a 8% margin of error in the results (assuming all thos families that did not have death certificates in their hands or immediately available at the time were lying).
Here is a list of links to articles about the study:
Of the total 655,000 estimated "excess deaths," 601,000 resulted from violence and the rest from disease and other causes, according to the study...
- http://www.foxnews.com (Note: This article is titled "Disputed Study: Over 650,000 Civilians Killed in Iraq War". Yet, no one disputing the study really has a leg to stand on. The emphais here is shifted to the political timing of the articles release.)
- http://abcnews.go.com
- http://www.cbsnews.com (Note: Associated press is the actual source. CBS News is only the recycler of the article.)
- http://news.bbc.co.uk
- http://www.turkishweekly.net (Note: By Patricia Reaney - The article cites London Reuters as the location an source. This article does show slightly different investigative analysis. It does go on to state that the increased death rate is indicate by the study to be 2.5 time the previous estimates.)
- http://www.washingtonpost.com (Note: By DAVID BROWN/The Washington Post. This seems to be one of the most widely distributed articles and particular article has been republished, in part or in full, in many different locations. His work is usually of a very high quality.)
- http://www.cnn.com (Note: This article contains a number of links including a link to a video feed from CNN. This article also contains a link to the full study as well, which should be considered required reading for all those electing to comment on the material.)
- http://www.alertnet.org
- http://www.prospect.org
- http://news.yahoo.com
- http://www.guardian.co.uk
- http://www.boomantribune.com
- http://www.outsidethebeltway.com
- http://www.juancole.com
- http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com
- http://freeinternetpress.com
- http://www.dfw.com
- Democratic National Committee Blog
The Republican National Committee website appears to be curiously silent as to the content of the report. Please leave me a comment if you happen to find a link to a GOP article on the subject. Personally, if I were an advisor for the GOP, I would be concerned that outside of dismissive rhetoric there is seems to be little other significant means of countering this report. Had the report been entirely baseless the GOP would have been able ot have a field day with this.
Some Questions:
An understading of the Iraq invasion and its consequences involve asking a lot of tough questions, among which are:
- How many Iraqi's have died as a social, political, and cultural upheaval that is associated with Operation Iraqi Freedom?
- Is it important to keep accurate statistics on the deaths of civilians and non-uniformed enemy combatants?
- Is it fair to blame the US and coalition forces for the death toll?
Item #1: How Many?
Let's cut to the chase. Apparently, nobody knows. Reporting and press releases regarding the John's Hopkin's study described above can be found by clicking on the following link. This will give you a look at what the researchers key findings and the report itself.
Item #2: Is it Important to Measure?
Yes, it is important to measure, as this statistic is absolutely relevant and indicative of the security situation in Iraq that was important to the Coalition Government and should be important to Iraqi government (or lack of government), and should certainly be important to the members of the UN that debate the subject.
Item #3: Is it fair to blame the US Forces?
Absolutely not. The majority of these deaths are resulting from Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence that broke out when the power vaccuum was createrd by removing the totalitarian leader Saddam Hussein. Having spoken with and edited books for Iraqi citizens, I can affirm that the Hussein regime was brutal and that the extent to which Saddam Husseins power penetrated was at time limited to the Jurisdiction of Bagdhad alone. The Iraqi citizenry has had a history of violent uprisings along sectarian lines and this level of violence is in no way surprising. The ethnic cleavages in Iraq are so deep that this country is years and perhaps several generations from being able to achieve domestic stability, so long as their are weapons in the homes of the people. And, at present, no Iraqi in their right mind would give up there weapons as it is a matter of life and death to be a ble to defend oneself and one's family.
This is the the brutal face of freedom. The absence of law and order the state of nature that in the words of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is "solitary, poor, nasty, and brutish". The laws that are recognized by the warring parties are, supposedly, Islamic laws which - due to the poetic and ambiguous nature of Islamic or Koranic writing can be interpretted in a number of different ways including make every effort to exterminate and subjugate those parties that are not faithful to your personal view of Islam. This creates a cleavage between tribes and divides the country into war camps.
The link below refers to the 2004 study conducted by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Columbia University School of Nursing and Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad.
Iraq Body Count Figures:
IraqBodyCount.org is an independent database of media-reported civilian deaths. The key term here is "media reported", this is an acknowledged limiter on the completeness on the data. They provide a link to the Iraq Body Count Database. If you have a website where you would and you would like to post there figures you can visit the following page:
A quick visit to the Iraq Body Count shows that there figure is less than 50,000 deaths. Again, be reminded that this represents data based on media reporting and even in the US the media does not report every single death as it occurs. Given the fractured nature of the situation in Iraq there are obviously challenges that could be made to accuracy of the data, yet, it is evidence that efforts are being made to gather these statistics.
Given that the difference between the reported figures is in excess of 550,000 there is reason to have these figures confirmed |
posted by Domesticated Dog @ 4:28 PM   |
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The links were helpful.