Socialist Worker has an interview with Les Roberts about his Lancet survey. There are comments on the interview on Crooked Timber and Shot by Both Sides. Roberts makes the point that a NEJM study that surveyed US soldiers on whether they had killed a non-combatant in Iraq tends to support the findings of his study.
This story also seems to support the Lancet study:
A week before she was killed by a suicide bomber, humanitarian worker Marla Ruzicka forced military commanders to admit they did keep records of Iraqi civilians killed by US forces.
Tommy Franks, the former head of US Central Command, famously said the US army "don't do body counts", despite a requirement to do so by the Geneva Conventions.
But in an essay Ms Ruzicka wrote a week before her death on Saturday and published yesterday, the 28-year-old revealed that a Brigadier General told her it was "standard operating procedure" for US troops to file a report when they shoot a non-combatant.
She obtained figures for the number of civilians killed in Baghdad between 28 February and 5 April, and discovered that 29 had been killed in firefights involving US forces and insurgents. This was four times the number of Iraqi police killed.
That death rate corresponds to about 3,000 such deaths over the time period of the Lancet study. Since March was relatively quiet, the true number may well be higher. This is in rough agreement with the Lancet number of very roughly 6,000 civilians accidentally shot dead by the coalition.
What the h-e-double-hockey-sticks?!? Where are all the ululaters denouncing the methods of this study? Why, scarcely a week ago they were clogging poor Tim's bandwidth with their comical innumeracy. What other issue could they have moved on to?D
They are busy debunking the arrival of May.
Although I would agree that March was a relatively quiet period for Iraq versus say, January. However, during the six days in question here Baghdad was quit violent indeed, as it, Anbar province, and the so called "Triangle of Death" south of Baghdad always are (almost all killings outside Baghdad during those six days, including over 120 civilians murdered in a car bomb attack in Hilla, occurred in those two regions).
Just doing a quick factiva search of one newspaper (the WaPost - I'm sure Socialist Worker and The Independent have have different figures) for those six days, I tallied 41 killed and 56 wounded within Baghdad in actions directly attributable to the insurgency/counterinsurgency.
The dead included 14 civilians killed in insurgent assassinations and car bombs, 14 ING (curiously no mention of Iraqi police), an Italian intelligence officer, 2 U.S. soldiers, and 12 insurgents (or freedom fighters if you prefer).
The wounded included 35 civilians wounded in insurgent attacks, 18 ING (again no mention of police), 2 Italian civilians, and 2 G.I.'s.
That week also included one of largest military actions in Baghdad of the year when a joint ING/U.S. patrol collided with a insurgent checkpoint manned by dozens of insurgents in a densely populated residential section of south Baghdad. Eight insurgents were killed, 11 captured, and and indeterminate number wounded in the ensuing firefight (along with 4 ING wounded).
The previous week's tally in Baghdad was 12 dead (5 civilians executed by insurgents, 2 policemen also executed, and 5 G.I.'s), and 10 wounded (all U.S. servicemen). At least by the WP's count, which certainly isn't authoriative (and which dubiously enough in neither week lists any Coalition induced civilian casualties).
So, what I am saying is one should hesitate before they extrapolate an especially violent six-day period in one of the most violent parts of the country to the rest of the country as a whole.
There wasn't a single mention by the WaPo of casualties in areas as disparate as Kirkuk, Basra, Najaf, or Karbala in either week, for instance.
Disclaimer: I neither agree nor disagree with the Lancet study. I'm just making what might be a valid observation. So save your daggers for others.
? March has more than six days?
"What the h-e-double-hockey-sticks?!? Where are all the ululaters denouncing the methods of this study?"
Okay Dano, I'll bite.
At Crooked Timber, D Squared did some " rough, back of the envelope " calculations from the NEJM study, and came up with approximately 27,000 civilian deaths inflicted by coalition forces. However (and correct me if I have this wrong) all the respondents in the NEJM survey were Army or Marine ground troops, not air personnel. This means that the 27,000 figure would overwhelmingly be the result of ground combat (gun shots, tank fire, etc). On the other hand, the Lancet concludes that the death toll from coalition causes is primarily from air strikes.
As Tim has pointed out, the Lancet data extrapolates a rough death toll of 6000 non combatants from coalition ground troops. This is dramatically different from the 27,000 figure arrived at by D Squared. I should qualify this by stating that D Squared cautioned that his figuring is very rudimentary, but this is largely because the nature of the NEJM study makes it so.
The Lancet and NEJM surveys are two different animals, measuring entirely different things for entirely different purposes (the NEJM study is a post traumatic stress study). Moreover, the Lancet study's objective was to measure post-invasion mortality with as much precision as possible. The NEJM's data is hopelessly incapable of providing reliable information in this same area. As was mentioned at Crooked Timber and elsewhere, the NEJM study seems neither inclined nor capable of breaking down whether multiple soldiers were reporting the same civilian death, whether individual soldiers were responsible for more than one death, or whether all respondents were being truthful and/or accurate.
I'd be much more inclined to express confidence in Marla Ruzicka's investigative efforts, and the statistical extrapolations derived from them.
Ahem, I confused 5 April with 5 March - how embarrassing. Sorry about the wasted bandwidth. I will quietly slink away now.
Btw, thanks for keeping the dagger sheathed.
Lest we forget, death is not the only thing that has been in excess in Iraq since GWB's crusade began.
As IRIN reports, there has been a 20% increase in birth defects, mostly attributed to water pollution and radiation, since before the war. They also note that up to 90% of these children do not survive.
Saaaay, Mike, when does yer funding come thru to go to Eye-rack and do a proper body count, incorporating all your commony-sensical idears?I bet you're chomping at the bit to git over there and show those others how to do a proper paper and come up with a correct count.Lettuce know when you go over there. Mebbe we'll take up a collection for Kevlar. Or maybe we all can take up a collection to send some commenters over there to start a-countin'.Good luck,D
Gee, and yet with all the alleged devastation and death and general worsening of the Iraqis' lives, even a year ago many more Iraqis said things are better than said they are worse in virtually every aspect of life compared to pre-war, and believe they will continue to get better in the future.
Ratings of Specific Local Conditions: Better - Worse (Compared to prewar)
Schools 47% 9
Household basics 47 16
Crime protection 50 21
Medical care 44 16
Clean water 41 16
Local gov't 44 16
Additional goods 44 17
Security 54 26
Electricity 43 23
Jobs 39 25
How Iraqis See Their Lives Overall
How things are going today: All North South Central Baghdad
Good 70% 85% 65% 70% 67%
Bad 29 14 34 28 32
Compared to a year ago, before the war:
Better 56% 70% 63% 54% 46%
Same 23 15 21 22 31
Worse 19 13 13 23 23
How they'll be a year from now:
Better 71% 83% 74% 70% 63%
Same 9 4 6 10 16
Worse 7 1 4 9
Those wacky Iraqis! They're just gluttons for punishment!
Sssay Dano, how much time did you spend under Sah-dahm being tortured and maimed, with your sisters and daughters being raped and your neighbors buried in mass graves? You can tell them all about yer idears of how great life is without freedom or democracy!
Let's put together a time machine and send ya on back! I bet you're chompin at the bit to enjoy pre-war Iraq!
Good luck
TD
Dano:
My my, it seems I've raised your ire to a point where you've gone all mumbly in the mouth on us.
Of course, I have to ask the obvious; why? I see nothing in my post that warranted such a reply. There were no insults in my comment, only an argument, which you chose not to respond to.
And that seems to be consistent with your favoured style of posting, Dano. Brief and pithy snotty-grams that are generally content-free gratuitous exercises in mocking.
I'll offer you some unsolicited advice. You could improve your commentary by doing one of two things. First, you could decide to provide some substantive, meaningful remarks on the issue under discussion. Alternatively, you could opt for a continuation of your juvenile sniping mode of posting, in which case I would suggest that you try to become good at it.
Otherwise, perhaps Tim needs to consider advertising for a new court jester for Deltoid.
Mike,
You're a better man than I.
FWIW, I thought your objections to what is probably misuse of the NEJM data were pretty sound.
First, you could decide to provide some substantive, meaningful remarks on the issue under discussion. Alternatively, you could opt for a continuation of your juvenile sniping mode of posting, in which case I would suggest that you try to become good at it.
Try this:There is nothing wrong with the Lancet methodology or analysis. If you think, Mike, that the Lancet or any other paper is so wrong and the methodology is so suspect, give us your research question, proposed methodology, and null hypothesis, and we'll all wish you good luck in your obtaining funds and Kevlar for your trip over there. Because doing a paper is d*mn hard and it's really d*mn easy for someone not in the field of study to chirp about this or that. Hope this is non-mumbly enough for you. It's not as fun, though, because as evidenced by our bud TD, the commenters on this subject are an endless source of amusement. Not that you, personally, Mike are comical - you simply need to to a research paper in the field and you'll come around in your views on the Lancet paper. HTH,D
Dano:
I'd " try this," except it has absolutely nothing to do with my comment, or what I was responding to from Tim's original post. Tell me Dano, where in my comment do you find any criticism of the Lancet study?
I conceded months ago, here and at other sites, that the Lancet survey's methodology seemed to be peer corroborated to a point where criticism of the methodology was invalid. I have however, disagreed with the authors' presentation of their results and conclusions, and also questioned the citing of these as accurate for purposes of extrapolating a total excess death estimate and death estimates for some of the most important death subsets.
I made my views known during various Lancet threads here. Dano, your sudden invitation for me to embark upon my own study seems rather disingenuous, since you had plenty of opportunities to dispute my arguments. Funny, I don't remember you doing so, and if you did, you didn't leave much of an impression.
In future, please try to respond to what I've said, so you can accurately deal with whatever it is that I've been " chirping " about.
And please, do me one more favour and stuff your chicken-hawk insults. I don't need you to buy me Kevlar. I have my own, and I've worn it to work for the past 23 years.
Talldave: "Sssay Dano, how much time did you spend under Sah-dahm being tortured and maimed, with your sisters and daughters being raped and your neighbors buried in mass graves?" ,p>
TallDave how long did you?
How would you respond to a similar query from shirin?
As for your (unsourced) opinion poll about how much better things are in Iraq now, can I suggest you take a look at the recent link to the Brooking Institute's "Iraq Index" which provides quite a different picture - drawn for the msot part from official Coalition and Iraqi government sources.
Mike, I apologize. I seem to have missed the threads where you stated such, and lumped you in with the ululaters. My mistake. Tired of the rhetoric on this issue and I mistakenly assumed...well, I'll just shut up now.Best,D
Dano:
Thanks for a very gracious apology. I also apologize for getting a little pissier than necessary. Tell you what, I'll open a beer at my end, you do the same in Oz, and we'll have a drink together and forget about it.
Thanks again,
Ian,
Thankfully, not a minute, but then I'm not advocating it for anyone else like the anti-war crowd are. And if I did live there, I would welcome liberation.
But then, I'm just one of those wacky "a gov't derives its just powers from the consent of the governed" radicals. So you probably shouldn't take me seriously.
The poll was done by Oxford Research International in conjuction with ABC and other media organizations.
Also, the (liberal) Brookings INdex does not appear to have anything to do with pre-war vs. post-war, so I'm not sure why you think they contradict the ORI study.
I'll hoist a Guinness, Mike, here in the Pacific Northwest, U.S. Thank you.D
Dave
The Brookings Institute index quite specifically quotes the pre-war power levels and the current levels.
If you had atually read the relevant sections of the report, you'd know that.
Talldave: "But then, I'm just one of those wacky "a gov't derives its just powers from the consent of the governed" radicals. So you probably shouldn't take me seriously."
Believe me, my reasons for not taking you seriously are quite different.