The Washington Post buried the story of 650,000 excess deaths in Iraq on page A12.
I don't know what inside page the story appeared on in the New York Times, but look what they had on their website (image to right). Three American deaths are much more important than 600,000 Iraqi ones. Gee, New York Times, you could at least pretend to care.
Mind you, there's worse things than burying the study. Malcolm Ritter in the Associated Press did a hatchet job on the study.
A controversial new study contends nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war, suggesting a far higher death toll than other estimates.
The timing of the survey's release, just a few weeks before the U.S. congressional elections, led one expert to call it "politics."
In the second word of his story he tags it as "controversial", and in the second sentence he has an expert dismiss it as "politics". And how can the timing of the release possible cast doubt on the accuracy of the study?
So who's the expert?
"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 not analysis, this is politics," Cordesman said.
Cordesman is an expert in military affairs, but he is not an expert in epidemiology or cluster sampling or anything relevant to judging the accuracy of the study. Why is he quoted in this story? Well, we know what happened in the Washington Post story on the first Lancet study. The Post reporter phoned around till he found Mark Garlasco, who was not an expert and who hadn't read the study and pressed him till he had a comment critical of the study. Which the reporter could use in his story for "balance".
Oddly enough, I have never seen a story that reported Human Rights Watch estimate of 300,000 Iraqis killed by Saddam balancing it by the including a comment from someone critical of the number even though by any objective measure the Lancet has a better foundation.
Update: In comments, ragout informs me that the story was referenced on the front page. The actual story, however, was not on the front page, but buried on page 12.
It is a little suspect that this study, like the last, come out right at election time.
ben wrote:
Why? There was no evidence that the results in either study were falsified.
This is no surprise. It is obvious and has always been obvious that most Americans, and our beloved leader in particular, give no weight whatsoever to the lives of people outside the US. To them, the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis is a small price to pay for ... well, I'm not sure just exactly what we have bought with those lives, not to mention the lives and limbs of thousands of Americans.
It is a little suspect that the rightwingers don't have a counter study to point to because the US military is hiding all their data.
Now why would they do that?
Ben, you would have to prove that a British journal such as Lancet, and it's peer-review process, is targetted to review & publish according to the US election schedule!
Cordesman wrote during the sanctions era that UN studies of deaths in Iraq were so flawed that it raises question to overall level of professional objectivity at the UN. He then went on to cite statistics from the CIA - apparently pulled from the air - showing that by some miracle Saddam had somehow made things better while under the sanctions.
While often informative on the Mid East, Cordesman has no shame in criticising professional studies that don't go his way.
The lead author of this study said this about his 2004 survey:
"quite sure that the estimate of 100,000 is a conservative estimate."
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20050622-090457-7786r.htm
Considering the confidence interval was 8,000-194,000 I find it very difficult to understand how this guy came to that conclusion. Does anyone have this quote in context? This guy has certainly made some statements that just sound fishy to me.
He called it a conservative estimate because cluster sampling tends to underestimate where the deaths are radically unevenly distributed. - andy
As Jonathon Schwarz points out, it only didn't make it to the front page because they had so much more important items
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=22920_Lancet_Editor-_Cert…
Lancet editor is not unbiased. In fact, he has quite an emotional attachment to the whole thing. He comes of as a uber lefty moonbat to me.
How is the Lancet editor's position relevant? He didn't work on the study, and he wasn't one of the peer-reviewers. You're grasping at straws here.
A friend sent this to me:
My point is, if that many additional people were dying each day for a three-year period, then, it seems to me, that others would have noticed, particularly when you take into account that in large areas of Iraq, particularly the Kurdish area in the north, there is no insurgency, there is little or no sectarian violence,and the population is largely prosperous, semi-independent and self governing. Although not totally peaceful, the areas in southern Iraq controlled by the British and the Poles have experienced far less violence than Baghdad and Al Anbar province, thus strongly suggesting that the death rate in Baghdad and Al Anbar would have to be substantially higher than the average. That is, I submit, sufficient ground to make the report's conclusion inherently suspect.
Does anyone here have a response?
I never pay any attention to LGF, ben, they're too emotionally involved in what they do.
Wacki, how's this? "The Kurdish area" includes both Mosul, where there has been heavy fighting on and off for three years, and Kirkuk, where there have been well documented allegations of ethnic cleansing. While it's fair to say the Kurdish militias have not challenged American forces directly or joined in the insurgency the way armed men from the other groups have, that doesn't mean the area is entirely peaceful. In the south there are well documented attacks and reprisals between the rival Shiite militias to consider, as well.
The map with the New York Times article shows the distribution of death rates in the Lancet study by province, and does indicate a higher rate in Al Anbar, but non-zero excess death rates in all the provinces sampled.
Are you aware of this LA Times article
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraqdead11oct11,1,8…
which seems to lean against the study, quoting the Brookings Institute, hardly a right wing think tank:
(On the other hand, earlier the article mentioned that Human Rights Watch was critical of the first Lancet paper, but failed to mention that the earlier criticism was extracted from an analyst who hadn't read the paper and withered under aggressive questioning from a persistent reporter.)
I'm no statistician, and haven't yet made up my mind on the latest study. I do, however, plan to check in here regularly for an unbiased appraisal. You did good objective work on the first study, so I'm expecting the same again.
Interestingly, the map produced by the study is completely consistent with the relative safety* of the Kurdish areas and southern Iraq.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/world/middleeast/11casualties.html
So, rather than discrediting the study, Wacki's wingnut friend is actually confirming its conclusions.
Anyway, according to the CIA World Factbook, the Kurdish people are only 15%-20% of all Iraqis (and not all Kurds live in the "Kurdish area"). So, in terms of the overall statistics, the relatively peaceful* Kurdish area makes very little difference.
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.html
(* Although still more dangerous than almost anywhere in America)
The problem with all of these criticisms is that they are attacking the result, not the process.
Wackj: Considering the confidence interval was 8,000-194,000 I find it very difficult to understand how this guy came to that conclusion. Does anyone have this quote in context? This guy has certainly made some statements that just sound fishy to me.
1. "Survivor bias" - where entire households died there was no-one left to report.
2. The checking of death certificates made it difficult for people to fabricate additional deaths but it was a lot easier for them to lie and understate deaths - say because they were afraid of reprisals if a household member had been an insurgent.
They also threw out a cluster from Fallujah showing an extremely high death toll there because they were afraid it would bias the figure upwards. That meant Anbar, the most violent part of Iraq according to most reports, was underrepresented.
It just isn't true that the WashPost buried the story. In the print edition, the Lancet study was prominently "advertised" on the front page, above the fold. Beneath a front-page picture of a grieving Iraqi mother, it said something like "Study: Iraq Death Toll at 655,000. Page A12."
I don't see the article at all on the home page of the Post's online edition, though.
The question implied by the headline of this post, and still unanswered is:
How many innocent Iraqis have to die before Americans realize this war is a bad idea?
I believe the Vietnam war has been estimated at resulting in 3 million dead civilians.
Hi all
Like I have said B4, when sandniggers wipe each other out it is a doule whammy. Islam is a beleif of death, long live white anglo saxon values.
Regards
Adolf Powell
"How many innocent Iraqis have to die before Americans realize this war is a bad idea?"
llewelly: "I believe the Vietnam war has been estimated at resulting in 3 million dead civilians."
Indeed. Bush now has Henry Kissinger advising him so the jerk circle is complete -- it's deja vu all over again.
Well, duh. People are indeed arguing over it, so by definition it's controversial. It's rather arrogant for you to consider it gospel truth simply because it confirms your own viewpoint.
Because they're releasing it just three weeks before mid-term elections in America, just like they released their last controversial study right before the presidential election. Likewise, consider the fact that the study includes deaths only tangentially related to the invasion, and that it's overall figure doesn't distinguish between those killed by the Coalition and those killed by insurgents. By this we're to assume that the Coalition is ultimately responsible for killings they don't commit, and in fact try nobly to prevent every day. This sort of assumption is both highly debateable and highly political, and makes the report itself a political document.
And, as evidenced here and elsewhere, most liberals share a visceral hatred of George W Bush and the Iraq war (even though it originally had bipartisan support based upon a consensus opinion about the threat Iraq). Given this blind hatred I don't put it past anyone to lie or exaggerate in order to hurt the war effort. Afterall, what's more important? Being totally honest, or stopping the deaths of civilians and defeating old Georgie.
Obviously not you, a point made hilariously obvious by the fact that you don't know how to read a paper.
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/pays_to_check/
But I will give you one point which you make particularly about Americans, but is universally true. People are willing to accept large numbers of casualties if they think that their cause is just, and more importantly, victorious. Americans perhaps understand this better than Australians because we actually fought for our independence rather than begging it, but I still believe that victory trumps other considerations for most people in the world. Conversely, failure drains the moral worth of even the noblest cause, which is why most people are now against the war. But you should be careful, for if we do establish a stable democracy in Iraq most will remember only this: we won fighting for a just cause, and you opposed it.
Wacki, here's another way to get a rough, first-order estimate of Iraqi dead. Count how many bodies show up at the Baghdad morgue(s) for, say, a week or two. Then extrapolate with some assumptions about the country-wide death rate as it compares to the Baghdad rate. Of course this is not accurate, but it beats innumerate bloviation. It seems to me that an enterprising right-winger could do some extrapolation along these lines from the comfort of his chair here in the peaceful US of A. I just did an estimate using 1302 days, 50 dead/day in Baghdad (province), Baghdad population of 6554 (thousands), Iraq population of 21738. I get about 270,000 dead. It's the same order of magnitude. You should not be surprised.
I note that Iraq body count is preparing a comment on this latest study here.
"A controversial new study contends nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war, suggesting a far higher death toll than other estimates."
Yeah, it's "controversial" because the method they're using to come up with these absurd numbers has already been demonstrated to produce totally unreliable results, as per the FAO Baghdad infant mortality study conducted a few years back (also published in The Lancet) in which it was later discovered that MOST of the people who were being surveyed simply lied in regard to questions about family members who had died.
The fact is is that these survey methods are a total joke, the numbers they prodiuce are a total joke and, what's more, the people at The Lancet know they're a total joke.
"Three American deaths are much more important than 600,000 Iraqi ones."
That part is right though. American lives are a lot more important than Iraqi lives, to some of us anyway.
Sorry, JohnP, you're estimation is flawed in at least two ways. First, it assumes that the violence nationwide is occuring at the same rate as Baghdad, when Baghdad is the currently the most violent city in Iraq. Second, it assumes that the level of violence has been the same since day one--funny, given that the left loves to always describe the violence as "spiraling out of control" like a broken jetski or something.
Inadvertantly,though, you demonstrate very clearly how one's own assumptions can color statistics, which is often described as more art than science.
Baghdad is nowhere near the most violent city in Iraq.
I believe that in terms of civilian deaths it is, but I'm not claiming to be an expert, so please explain the claim if it's true.
That is the lamest, most weasily defense I've seen in some time. So because they only included a huge picture of an Iraqi woman with a coffin plus a prominent referral to page A12, you consider it buried. You know sometimes it's better just to admit you did something boneheaded instead of defending it in such a way that makes you look ridiculous.
cm says:
>You know sometimes it's better just to admit you did something boneheaded instead of defending it in such a way that makes you look ridiculous.
And the innumerate Lancet critics will be doing this when?
Some quick Googling turns up references to both Falluja and Ramadi as Iraq's most violent cities. On what are you basing your belief that Baghdad is the most violent?
"And the innumerate Lancet critics will be doing this when?"
Why would critics of The Lancet do that when The Lancet is publishing "studies" using a method ("the ask people, and take their word for it" method) that has proven not to produce accurate results?
Dave, what peer-reviewed papers make that claim? As has been pointed out, death certificates were produced in the majority of cases.
"Dave, what peer-reviewed papers make that claim? As has been pointed out, death certificates were produced in the majority of cases."
I'm making that claim, based on the absurd results of the FAO Baghdad infant mortality study of the mid-1990s (using the same methods used in the Iraq casualty "studies").
"As has been pointed out, death certificates were produced in the majority of cases."
Produce them for me (not that it would prove anything...but go ahead and show them to me anyway...just for the fun of it).
Tim,
Innumerate? Well, actually, I think I can give you a rough estimate of the actual number of Lancet critics. I've spoken with 10 people about the Lancet study, and 7 of them think it's utter bullshit. Extrapolating to the population of Earth, that means about 4 billion of us think the study is wrong. And you know what, The Post has totally ignored this important fact!
As for admitting a mistake in questioning the Lancet study, that really depends on whether or not someone can defend it coherently, and I really doubt that someone is a guy who doesn't know how to even read a newspaper.
Davis,
I'm simply basing it on news stories I read coming out of Iraq that suggest most of the civilian deaths are occurring in Baghdad. I don't know if that's a fact or not, or if Ramadi has more violence and less civilian casualties. Incidentally, most of the fighting in Anbar province now concerns Coalition forces and Sunni partisans fighting al Qaeda and one another, while the violence in Baghdad seems to specifically target civilians. My point, though, was that interpolating an accurate body count from a particularly violent city will inevitably make the count much higher than reality.
My bad, Dave. I accorded you some respect.
"My bad, Dave. I accorded you some respect."
That's not bad. You were wise to do so.
Lambert, on one hand, you should probably be concerned about how deep a hole you're digging for yourself. On the other hand, you seem deluded and dishonest enough (especially with yourself) that no matter how silly you end up looking for wholeheartedly backing something you clearly don't understand, you will be able to plug your ears, close your eyes and tell yourself that you're not the intellectual couch potato you have proven yourself to be.
Gee, I'm glad Doug didn't sully that pristine comment with, y'know, content.