AP story reports the figure as 655,000. Good Lord. Invictus, here is the Washington Post's explanation for the two numbers (via Deltoid): 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. This is about 500 unexpected violent deaths per day throughout the country. I don't feel good popping this, but we cannot hide from the reality, which this current administration seems to do and all those who support them. The loss of six hundred thousand plus lives all because some guy posed a potential danger in the future is one of the lowest points of American history. Thanks for the info, Josh. In fact, the 55,000 thousands difference is not that important , considering the huge total amount. So it doesn't mean much, if we question how many of that 55,000 deaths, caused by diseases as reported, were actually somewhat related to the abnormal war circumstances (unhygienic conditions, lack of clean drinking water and insufficient medicine etc.) ditto for me arifsali. I wonder how badly this dwarfs the pre-war numbers (since peopl elike to point out that saddam was responcible for thousands of deaths, and use that as a reason for invading)... Its BS. I can't believe some of you are not taking this survey with a grain of salt. -- "The survey, being published online by British medical journal The Lancet, gives a far higher number of deaths in Iraq than other organizations." -- "An accurate count of Iraqi deaths has been difficult to obtain, but one respected group puts its rough estimate at closer to 50,000. And at least one expert was skeptical of the new findings. "They're almost certainly way too high," said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. He criticized the way the estimate was derived and noted that the results were released shortly before the Nov. 7 election. "This is n... I wonder how badly this dwarfs the pre-war numbers (since peopl elike to point out that saddam was responcible for thousands of deaths, and use that as a reason for invading)...I believe the numbers refer to EXCESS deaths, these are deaths that exceed the number of deaths that occurred prior to the invasion. Its BS.You can't just deny NYTimes like this, if they are way off then there should be correction the next day, or else, it is true. You can't just deny NYTimes like this, if they are way off then there should be correction the next day, or else, it is true.No, that is incorrect reasoning. The NYT is simply reporting that a study took place and what that study determined. Just becuase the NYT reported it does not make the study they reported on true. I'm questioning the validity of the study, as are many others, including many independent firms who track the deaths in Iraq. @arifsali, let's so some simple and very conservative math, shall we? Let's say 50 people were killed daily (which we know it a high number, but let's take it as an example) and let's multiply it by 365 days (which we also know isn't the case, but let's) and let's multiply it by 4 (although it hasn't been 4 years yet, but since it's more than 3 - let's use 4) - what does that come out to. 50*365*4 = 73,000. So, how can possibly a number almost ten times this conservative number be considered accurate? It's ridiculous. RS, on what basis do you decide that 50 deaths per day is high? From a US military source, we have this: In the report, “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” daily averages of dead and wounded Iraqi civilians, soldiers and police officers rose from 26 a day in 2004 to almost 120 a day in August 2006.That's the US military. Then we have this, from the same article: A police official at Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad who spoke on the condition of anonymity said he had seen nationwide counts provided to the hospital that indicated as many as 200 people a day were dying.Who knows what number is correct ... but my point is, it kind of sounds like you plucked t... On the basis that these kinds of reports came out very infrequently, mostly it's been 40 here, 12 there etc. look at the reports on the daily basis. Obviously there were some like you pointed out, but it's certainly rare. I'm guessing you're talking about the kind of headline-news reports, the ones where we hear about a spectacular and news-worthy car-bombing that killed 25 in Baghdad, etc. etc. But what we don't hear are the numbers of ongoing assassinations and reprisals that from what I can gather are going on all over the country now. I assume you saw this story on the US Embassy's assessment of security conditions in Baghdad. My sense is that people are being butchered in their homes every day, all over the country, often whole families, and it certainly doesn't make the headlines regularly. I did and you might be right, but we don't know. Certainly when bodies are found, with people shot execution style - they do report it. The bottom line is we don't know and neither do the people that put out the 600k number. Just thinking logically - the numbers would have to be huge to come up with that kind of total. It seems to me that the idea that the media reports every violent death in Iraq is a rather heroic assumption. Ok, that may be true, but how do you figure the people who reported the number got their count? It's no less heroic assumption. It explains in the article that they polled just under 2000 households. I don't know, and probably wouldn't understand, the exact methodology, but I do know that Johns Hopkins has a lot of experience doing this kind of epidemiological work. Right, at its core the assumptions involved are based on well known principles of statistics and probability that involve representing a population with a random sample. In my book, those are not heroic assumptions. Now, I am sure that people are going to argue over how random the sample was, just like they did with the 2004 study, but just like the 2004 study withstood all of the scrutiny it received, I expect so will this study. |
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