estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

Yeah, how did they account for the actuarial instability of living under a murderous dictator? All Saddam would need to do to throw their "expected" rate of death model out the window is to direct his Army to start gasing some more villages, or launch another war, or have the secret police get more aggressive in their meting out of punishment. Life in Iraq never had the actuarial stability of life in the Connecticut suburbs.

What's also incredible is the fact that those 4,700 a month being killed by coalition forces are less than 1/3 the total number of people being killed/otherwise dying who otherwise would not be.

Is it in fact that case that 10,000 people are being killed each month by fellow Iraqis? Am I wrong to draw this conclusion from your post?

Both serious questions, not snark.

All Saddam would need to do to throw their "expected" rate of death model out the window is to direct his Army to start gasing some more villages, or launch another war, or have the secret police get more aggressive in their meting out of punishment.

Or the US/UN could have stopped the sanctions, of course. That would also have thrown the expected death rate out quite a bit, one would think.

I think adjectives like "astonishing" really deserve to be replaced with "horrifying" or "appalling," don't you? Or hell, how about "shameful"? Lots of civilian deaths, lots of two-year-olds and twelve-year-olds and eighty-year-olds dead unnecessarily. Much good the wonders of what our Fearless Leader likes to call "a democratic Iraq" are doing for them.

Tangoman makes the mistake of believeing that because Saddam killed so many people before their time it's OK if we do, maybe "because they would have died anyway".

Unfortunately it is now the US that is at least indirectly responsible for ALL those deaths from all causes other than natural: malnutrition, diseased water, poor medical care, gunshot, explosives, lack of pre- and post-natal care, etc. We are the occupying power. We are in charge. Not the ineffective, unempowered politicians sheltering in the Green Zone or getting shot elsewhere.

Still. Wouldn't expect any Repugnut to accept responsibility for their actions of choice.

Even if the figure is 327,000, that is horrifying.

No wonder the US governance never wanted to keep count of deaths. Arseholes!

TangledMind: Life in Iraq never had the actuarial stability of life in the Connecticut suburbs.

Where Joe Lieberman puts his life on the line to keep them safe!

abjectfunk: Is it in fact that case that 10,000 people are being killed each month by fellow Iraqis? Am I wrong to draw this conclusion from your post?

Yes. You are not accounting for deaths which came as a result of the invasion, but which were not directly caused by combat. Starvation, untreated illness, hazards in the environment, etc. are examples.

Tango: Sure, he could have, but he didn't. All the study is trying to do is compare what actually happened in the few years before the invasion with what happened in the few years after. The pre-invasion figures are pretty close to estimates from other sources, and are probably fairly reliable.

This isn't an argument for or against the invasion. (At least, that's not the argument I'm making.) However, it is an argument that we're fighting a full fledged war in Iraq. That's bad news.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

You get the idea - 665,000 "commas."

If you do the arithmetic, it means that coalition forces have killed 186,000 Iraqis in the 39 months between the invasion and the period when the study was done.

Who says we don't know what we're doing? Huh? Them's some goddamn good figgers, right there!

A couple more years of this, and both the eye-rackees left in the country will love us, you bet!

"Mr. and Mrs Smith - we regret to inform you your "comma" was killed in action. Please take this flag as a consolation prize."

GoNed - I think abjectfunk was right. The article claims that 601,000 of the 655K deaths were the result of violence (with your examples covering the rest). If 31% were due to coalition actions, the other 69% have to be Iraqi deaths caused by Iother Iraqis or foreighn insurgents. That 69% equals 414690 deaths over 39 months (lets call it 40 to be safe) which would be about 10.350 Iraaqi deaths per months that are the result of non-coalition initiated violence.

If the same methodology was used 2 years ago giving a number 1/6 of the latest estimate, that is quite significant, regardless of the accuracy.
Considering the number of attacks the US troops are suffering (up to 900/wk, according to Woodward), it's not hard to extrapolate several thousand iraqis being killed by US troops every month.

MattR - good points, but I would argue that the sectarian violence is a by-product of the invasion. Nobody loved Saddam Hussein, probably not even his own mother, and he did have his fair-share of people killed. But no where near 10K a month.

Not to split hairs but the analysis didn't generate controversy, the result did.

You're right that the methodology was meticulous and correct. Criticism of it was strictly of the bullshit variety. For certain people the result was unacceptable and going after statistics itself was the only alternative to accepting reality.

I found this comment from one of the Hopkins researchers to be a key.

Burnham said that the estimate of Iraq's pre-invasion death rate -- 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people -- found in both of the Hopkins surveys was roughly the same estimate used by the CIA and the U.S. Census Bureau. He said he believes that attests to the accuracy of his team's results.

Makes it harder to argue with the methodology when it yields the exact same answers as other group's using potentially different methods.

Only a matter of time before some innumerate troll wanders in and claims that it's stoopid to extrapolate 600k excess deaths from 629 surveyed deaths. There are community college statistics courses taking enrollment.

We need to send President Bush, Laura Bush, the two Bush girls, Mr. Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rove, maybe Denny Hastert and Joe Lieberman to the front lines, in appropriate early design bullet proof vests and ill-equipped Hummers, all to do what they’re suggesting. I love the columnists who suggest we can't "cut and run" and suggest instead that we keep our young people in the military in harms way so they can be killed to correct those clowns’ mistakes. Maybe some of the other liars, too, could join the crew I have named above of first rate idiots who, along with the neocons we could add like Wolfowitz & Co. to the newly created battalion, to rectify the situation. Remember, needlessly killing our young people isn't something we like to mention when proposing solutions about messes created by Bush & Co. like Iraq or Afghanistan; it's all lofty ideas and solutions. The alternative is to let the locals solve their own problems and for our government to work on real strategic solutions to existing problems, like learning how to act like diplomats and working out real strategic solutions that don't involve stupid loss of life. What's really behind all this, if you really think about it, is oil and nothing more; no one would care a fig for any of this if it weren't for the oil. Once we figure out how to divorce ourselves from using oil, these places will become minor players in world affairs.

The U.S. government under Bush has been a reflection of his ignorance and attitudes and has been acting the way amateurs do, not knowing or understanding the impact of what it has been doing. From Bush, who makes a joke of his ignorance, to stooges such as Rumsfeld and truly unfeeling fixed-idea men such as Cheney, we have suffered from inept and uninformed leadership. Iraq is just one example of such amateurness, with a war that had no plan for any follow-up. Iran is another. The way we’ve handled Afghanistan is still another. Our ignoring the essential conflict between Israel and the Palestine peoples, just hoping it will go away. Add them up and we can now see how inept this administration has been. Then look at the current economy, changed from a positive one in which our assets were growing to one in which almost everything except oil has been declining. Asking the military, who weren’t trained to build nations and who did their job heroically in the war, to sort out what needs to be done in Iraq or Afghanistan is truly amateurish; such work was never the military’s job. Not even having a full professional cadre of those who speak the language of our enemies, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Iran to Lebanon how could this administration even pretend to understand what forces it has unleashed? The author of Fiasco, Tom Ricks, has said well probably have troops in Iraq for fifteen years because of how amateurishly things have been handled. Just what our enemies could have wished for - a weakened military tied up for a long time. I grieve for our sons and daughters and our grandchildren who will be forced to handle the mess that will be left behind by this administration.

This is old information but it is still valid and illustrates the point about Iraq.

We have troops in Afghanistan, but they appear to be there mainly poised to defend the central government, which has been threatened by a number of groups including the Taliban (the prior totalitarian government), war lords in various provinces, and a loose network of guerillas including the Al Qaeda group. The current Administration, led by President Bush, has apparently de-emphasized our military efforts in Afghanistan and his rhetoric, his use of the words “war on terror”, appear to be mainly directed at Iraq, not Afghanistan.

The number of deaths of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan in this first military operation is 255 with 765 injured as of January 2006, as tracked by Wikipedia. I cite this figure in sharp contrast to the number of U.S. troops killed in the next military effort, still going on today, in Iraq which was 2,299 U.S. soldiers killed and 33,094 seriously injured as of March 2006 (cited at the site http://icasualties.org/oif/default.aspxhttp://icasualties.org/oif/default.aspx). The disparity between Afghanistan and Iraq, in terms of dead and casualties is very revealing about what is being emphasized.

"The U.S. government under Bush has been a reflection of his ignorance and attitudes and has been acting the way amateurs do"

Back in the day, and I'm talking about the cowboy era here, it was the damned cowboys from Texas who caused all the problems. Abilene Kansas had such a problem with drunken Texas Cowboys they hired Wild Bill Hickock as the sheriff to keep order. I'm just sayin'

By the way, any call for more troops for any U.S. military engagements will almost certainly result in a draft. My son believes this would be a good thing because it will shock people who otherwise are indifferent to what's going on in both Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of killing; I, being older and more cynical, believe if there is a Republican majority, it will certainly come about but without any shock value whatsoever.

Joyfully Subversuve - I wont argue with your conclusions. If anything they buttress the main thesis of the researchers that the invasion of Iraq led to significantly more Iraqi death than if we had left well enough alone.

Here's a different sobering thought. If the JHU numbers are correct then 600K out of 30 million Iraqis have been killed due to violence since the beginning of the war. If we translate to the United States and its population of 300 Million, it is the equivalent of 6 million American civilians being killed over teh same 39 or 40 month time period.

I went to the Lancet page but do not see this published yet.

But I stand corrected. According to the WP, the researched numbers are the difference between the year prior to invasion and deaths following invasion. So it is only the difference in how we are actually doing worse than Saddam and embargo life, so they actually understate our failure.

Great work!

That said, if the figures are raally this high, this is a disgrace. A real blot.

I know we haven't got their clinics or hospitals up and running, staffed and supplied, so I wonder how many deaths are the result of treatable injury.

And this is a freedom operation right?

Mach - did you get your beer:hands ratio corrected.

600k dead implies >2,000,000 injured.

Where are they?

Daniel Davies better clear his calendar: he's gonna be *real* busy for awhile.

Mach - did you get your beer:hands ratio corrected.
Posted by: Joyfully Subversive

lol, yeh, now I'm drinking hot tea [caffeinated]

These figures are staggering. I am still dumbfounded that this all started as a Democratic experiment, to free people from a brutal dictator, a regime change.

Good God how far we have fallen.

It was never a democratic experiment. It was always about using brutality to develop US strategic interests

Secrecy News yesterday posted a recent Congressional Research Service report on Iraqi Civilian, Police, and Security Forces Casualty Estimates [in a PDF file].

I'm with Wendy. 'Horrifying' seems more appropriate than 'astonishing'. And frankly, even if it were half that number of people (2350) who were being killed daily it would still be horrifying. I don't know what the stats are on the number of people killed in the worst battles of WWI or WWII, but my guess is that the average numbers of daily deaths in those World Wars was nowhere near as high.

It was never a democratic experiment. It was always about using brutality to develop US strategic interests -deadmanwalking

Yes, I'm sure of that..many others aren't.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060725.html
PRIME MINISTER MALIKI: Thank you, Mr. President. Actually, successful acts and large issues has to be based on a clear vision. And through the serious discussion and the clear and the frank conversation that I had with President George Bush, that we are truly crossing the T's and dotting the I's in terms of enhancing the security and supporting the reconstruction. Through the discussion we were able to go through the details of the vision that will cover the future, because we are not talking here about a specific phase of the reconstruction, but we are facing the necessity of continuous work in order to make sure that the entire political experiment will succeed.

Somebody forget to tell Mr Maliki it wasn't an 'Political Experiment'

whoops. I have to correct myself. Using some numbers attained off the web, it seems that there were 8,300,000 combatants killed in the four years of WWI, and another 8,000,000 non-influenza related civilian deaths. Using statistically unsound simple division that works out to an average of about 10,000 deaths/day. WWI isn't called The Great War for nothing. But even that comparison is pretty stunning, given that, well, Iraq is a pretty localized region and not, well, the world.

This is truly horrific. I want to scream. It is amazing how this has been kept so quiet. Even if the true figures are half this amount. We see almost nothing of the carnage. We are kept busy with a missing maiden in Aruba and the possibility of the solution of the murder of a small child ten years ago. It is the shame of my generation for allowing this to happen.

I halfway blame Bush and company but I also blame the citizens of the US for letting them get away with it. We have had our chances to stop this.

600k dead implies >2,000,000 injured.

Where are they?

Posted by: a on October 11, 2006 at 2:57 AM | PERMALINK

How do you figure? Normal news quotes for bombings are about 2:1 injured:dead, and that's figuring 100% survival. What I've been reading about Iraqi hospitals I find that unlikely. And assassinations don't seem to have such a ratio.

I halfway blame Bush and company but I also blame the citizens of the US for letting them get away with it. We have had our chances to stop this.

The Mayberry Machiavellis deserve a good dose of blame but don't neglect the blame that should be directed at a conquered people who are rebelling. As this Harvard symposium detailed, the Germans and the Japanese populations worked with the occupation forces and thus suffered very few casualties as a result of occupation. For the Germans and the Japanese the war and violent death stopped pretty much with the cessation of hostilities.

The fact that the Machiavellis never took planning for an occupation seriously betrays their naivete, but even with that helping of blame that doesn't obviate the responsibility that befalls on large segments of the Iraqi population who are creating the headaches which stall the rebuilding efforts and lead to cycles of violence.

Iraqi population who are creating the headaches which stall the rebuilding efforts and lead to cycles of violence.
Posted by: TangoMan

Britain set up a colonial regime in Iraq after a long military campaign during World War I. In response to Iraqi resistance, including a country-wide uprising in 1920, British forces battled for over a decade to pacify the country, using airplanes, armored cars, firebombs and mustard gas. Air attacks were used to shock and awe, to teach obedience and to force the collection of taxes. Winston Churchill, as responsible cabinet minister in the early years, saw Iraq as an experiment in high-technology colonial control.

It's not our fault that we invaded their country!

The most impressive thing about this number is that it's six times the estimate made a year after the invasion (back when, IIRC, the coalition troops were killing people twice as fast as the insurgents). People are dying at twice that rate now.

Is it inconceivable that an immediate pullout could a great many lives?

Tangoman --

could that be because they never declared war on us, feel unfairly imposed on, were not invaded by several hundred thousand troops enforcing stability in edvery town, and had there incomes, administrations and sense of self-worth dismantled. And when did we invite them to be partners in the rebuilding, exactly?

They resent being "conquered" and are resisting. And fighting among themselves because we destabilized the previous, if rotten, status quo, replacing it with three, so far, ineffective "governments".

What might you have done? There certainly weren't many waving flags and strewing petals, were there?

No. The responsibility lies with the US.

There was one who warned "You break it you own it."

Iraqi population who are creating the headaches which stall the rebuilding efforts and lead to cycles of violence.
Posted by: TangoMan

That cycle of violence began quite a while ago Tango...

The U.S. is playing today roughly the same role with respect to Iraq’s oil riches that Britain did early last century. History has a habit of repeating itself.. Oil development in Iraq took place against a backdrop of war, political intrigue, deception, secret agreements and oil company haggling. Iraq, historically known as Mesopotamia, was part of the Ottoman Empire since 1534. (“Iraq” was the name given by the British to their newly created mandate). Collapse of the Ottoman Empire in early 20th century gave the Western powers the opportunity to seek political influence and commercial benefits in new territory – in Iraq as well as the rest of the Ottoman territory. Oil was the major prize. Discovery of oil in 1908 at Masjid-i Suleiman in Iran – an event that changed the fate of the Middle East – gave impetus to quest for oil in Mesopotamia. Oil pursuits in Mesopotamia were concentrated in Mosul, one of three provinces or “vilayets” constituting Iraq under the Ottoman rule. Mosul was the northern province, the other two being Baghdad (in the middle) and Basra (in the south) provinces. Foreign geologists visited the area under the disguise of archeologists.

Idiots, like Bush Jr. and his neo-con cabaal of nation builders and supply side economic gurus like that whore Cheney and their 'reality based' empire are repeating idiotic things. The Cycle of Violence began with greedy, greasy, slimy, death for oil morons such as we have in power today.

We no longer live in the age of empires, these Cold War warriors, Rummy, Cheney,Kissinger need to get that shit thru their heads.

They resent being "conquered" and are resisting. And fighting among themselves because we destabilized the previous, if rotten, status quo, replacing it with three, so far, ineffective "governments".

That's plainly obvious. Japan too resented being conquered and yet confronted with the reality before them they sought the quickest way to minimize the disruption to their lives and that meant no insurrection. Iraqi tribal culture is more interested in settling old scores than moving forward in a substantive way. They're making a choice in how to deal with the reality that is before them and with choice comes responsibility.

If the Iraqis acted like the Japanese or the Germans then the body count would be far, far lower.

If the Iraqis acted like the Japanese or the Germans then the body count would be far, far lower.

Over 3½ years of direct U.S. involvement in World War II, approximately 400,000 American lives had been lost, roughly half of them incurred in the war against Japan. In the months prior to the bombings, the Battle of Okinawa resulted in an estimated 50,000–150,000 civilian deaths, 100,000–125,000 Japanese or Okinawan military or conscript deaths and over 72,000 American casualties. An invasion of Japan was expected to result in casualties many times greater than in Okinawa.

They never even invaded Japan Tango, nor did they attempt regime change..your comparison is not a very good one.

Tangoman --

you can't ignore the culture. The Japanese all fell in line 'cos the emperor told them to.

Blood feuds, tribes, clans, families, bargaining are the way of life of these people.

You can't and shouldn't expect them all to become "realistic" Western democratic types overnight.

One of Bush and his buddies' biggest blind spots is ignoring the culture of "furners", their pride, their "face". With Iraqis, Koreans, the French. They think everyone should do just as they are told, because we say so. That just doesn't work.

And often it is downright counterproductive.

I don't know if anyone mentioned this yet, but the number of bombs dropped on Iraq dwarfs the number from any previous conflict.
I believe the Lancet study's numbers indicate that most of the civilian deaths are come from US bombing ---at least that was the case in the first study. An analysis of the bombing rates might give additional support to their numbers.
I haven't read the study, obviously, but I would be uncomfortable in accepting such a high number without a hypothesis for the distribution of causes of death, along with some other supporting evidence.

The new study attributes most of the violent deaths to the locals. As far as I know, we aren't doing much bombing nowadays. That's not to say that the number of deaths attributed to the ongoing activities of the coalition forces isn't disturbing.

Of the 600k deaths, 200k came at our hands. Let's say 100k died in the first year. With a 2:1 kill ratio, we took 60k lives, and we apparently haven't slowed down in the two years since then.

How can anyone suggest that we're saving lives by staying there?

Here's the canonical Daniel Davies piece on the critiques of the original Lancet study, detailing which ones were pure hackery and which ones were less hackish but still flawed.

Once the paper appears online, we'll get a better sense of the precise methodology and number crunching, but I suspect that the same bullshit will be rolled out.

The breakdown is what's truly scary: 3.2 violent deaths per 1000 in the year following the invasion, 6.6 the following year and 12 in the year ending June 2006.

Does the report say anything about how many dead fetuses?

I mean, how many abortions have been performed via laser-guided bomb?

Wouldn't we have to include them?

If violent deaths are running at 12/1000 then there is no way to say this is not a full scale civil war. Those are Congo-type numbers. I would be interested in seeing the distribution of deaths by sex and age, as compared to 1) the iraq population as a whole and 2) the distribution of people out and about (cause women and the extremes of age are going to be likely to stay home.

One thing. Was this study done over all Iraq? What was the distribution of clusters wrt the regions of Iraq? From what I understand, there is far less violence in the south (shi'ite) and north (kurdish) areas.

And this is a freedom operation right?

Yes, indeedy! Good thing we're not trying to destroy the country.

adam: the NYT has a graphic showing regional distribution, indicating that the highest death rates are indeed in Baghdad and to the west.

'There is no flag big enough to hide the shame of killing innocent people.'
--Howard Zinn

The study

And the study was meant to be embargoed until Thursday UK time, when The Lancet publishes, but Reuters decided to run it anyway. So we won't see the study itself until then. Don't let yourself be fooled by trolls asking 'where's the study'?

Ah, I'm wrong: they released it early. And it was the AP which broke the Thursday embargo, so my apologies to Reuters.

So, are we satisfied yet? Two hundred dead for every one we lost on September 11? Have we sated our lust for retribution?

Being a Christian first and an American second, I am deeply, deeply ashamed of the actions of this government. I did not sign up to be an accomplice to mass murder. I pray God will forgive me and all of us, for allowing this Administration to slaughter innocent people the way they have and then wave the American flag to justify it.

I pity George W. Bush when he dies and has to answer for all the blood dripping off his hands...

I quote:

Using data from the 2006 survey to look at the time included in the 2004 survey,we estimate that the number of excess deaths during that time were about 112,000.

That these two surveys were carried out in different locations and two years apart from each other yet
yielded results that were very similar to each other,is strong validation of both surveys.

"So, are we satisfied yet? Two hundred dead for every one we lost on September 11? Have we sated our lust for retribution?"

Retribution? As if Iraq had the slightest connection with 9/11 . . .

Yeah, how did they account for the actuarial instability of living under a murderous dictator? All Saddam would need to do to throw their "expected" rate of death model out the window is to direct his Army to start gasing some more villages, or launch another war, or have the secret police get more aggressive in their meting out of punishment.

Saddam didn't have any gas, and he could never have launched a war with Britain and the US guarding the no-fly zones. Is this some sort of joke?

As for his secret police, after the 1991 slaughter of the Shia rebels Saddam regained total control on the ground. There was no open opposition left. If I recall the 2004 report correctly, from 1992-2003 Saddam's secret police annual murder rate was something like 5,000.

When you're killing twelve times as many Iraqis as Saddam's deathsquads, don't be surprised that the Iraqis don't love you.

Say somebody did away with Bush. The perp's defense team constructed a case highlighting reports of the slaughter unleashed on innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan. You are on the jury. How could you vote to convict? An invader in your home can be gunned down by you and all you'll suffer is a cursory hard look from the authorities before you're absolved of wrongdoing. Bush has invaded tens of thousands of homes, killing many innocents and bystanders. Wouldn't you have to lean towards justifiable homicide in considering the fate of his assassin? In your heart how could you feel punishment was merited?

We have witnessed the killing of more Iraqis than Saddam ever did; soon we will have lost more Americans in Iraq than how many died on 9-11. Surely the entry at Wikipedia for FUBAR must read "Iraq".

Where was the self-flaggellating left when Pol Pot killed millions of his own people? And in Combodia there is physical proof of the killings, unlike the esotering statistical mumbo jumbo by Bush hating professors of a left wing university.

Why is it so widely assumed that blame for the death toll – whatever the correct number – rests with America rather than with those who are carrying out the mass murders in order to drive the U.S. out so they can take over Iraq?

This is from one of the Nazi boys at the Corner. the mind reels.

"Where was the self-flaggellating left when Pol Pot killed millions of his own people?"

What a frigging ahistorical idiot you are, Jaye!

The government of the United States destabilized the neutralist government of Cambodia, allowing Pol Pot and his band of loonies to take power.

The government of the United States then opposed the efforts of the Vietnamese communists to reign him in--note that he was eventually ousted by a Vietnamese invasion.

But you blame Pol Pot on the left, of course--I suppose, from your point of view, that Nixon and Kissinger are lefties . . .

I just skimmed the comments but did not see anyone report that the previous Lancet piece from this group estimated 100,000 deaths but, when their methodology was challenged, admitted that the range was 9,000 to 194,000. This sort of work is nonsense and clearly politically driven.

Lancet has gotten itself into politics on other topics recently, including immunization's relationship to autism. Secondly, this sentence it means that coalition troops are killing nearly 5,000 Iraqis per month. That's truly an astonishing number. is truly astonishing from someone who has seemed more reasonable than many of his commenters. The vast majority of civilian deaths in Iraq are caused by terrorist attacks by other Muslims. That you would attribute this death rate to our troops and ignore the fact that they are fighting an enemy that does not use uniforms and hides among the population, is the most astonishing thing of all.

Well, I for one am glad we killed them over there and and not over here. It's a lot easier for a sniper to shoot the guy digging a hole in the road in Fallujah than it is for a mall security guard to stop him as he drives his explosive laden taxi at high speed into a "Baby Gap".

jay makes some good points. Were any liberals writing about the killlings in Cambodia, East Timor, or Rwanda while they were happening? Why didn't Clinton stop the genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda? Do liberal professors, liberal politicians, and hollywood types even know that there is an ongoing genocide in Darfur?

All of their attention is on the supposed attrocities committed by Americans. Hypocrit traitors. Folks like Steve Duncan are a real threat to the homeland with their twisted anti-american assasination mongering logic. I hope the DIA is on to him.

Jay, The religious left protested Pol Pot's slaughter of innocents the way they abhor all violence. Where was the right-wing??

Kevin (stupidly) writes: This is remarkable. If you do the arithmetic, it means that coalition forces have killed 186,000 Iraqis in the 39 months between the invasion and the period when the study was done. That's about 4,700 per month — and the numbers are on a steady upward trend.

Good. I hope you're correct that "the numbers are on a steady upward trend" if those Iraqis we're killing are mostly terrorists and insurgents. Did it ever occur to you, Mr. Drum, that these are the Iraqis who are doing the dying at the hands of coalition forces? Sheesh!

Mike K wrote: "... the previous Lancet piece from this group estimated 100,000 deaths, but when their methodology was challenged, admitted that the range was 9,000 to 194,000. This sort of work is nonsense and clearly politically driven."

Wrongwrongwrong. First of all, they didn't "admit" this after being challenged, the margin of error was in the original paper. Secondly, they had
additional reasons to think it was closer to 100,000 than to 9,000:

Research is more than summarizing data, it is also interpretation. If we had just visited the 32 neighborhoods without Falluja and did not look at the data or think about them, we would have reported 98,000 deaths, and said the measure was so imprecise that there was a 2.5% chance that there had been less than 8,000 deaths, a 10% chance that there had been less than about 45,000 deaths, (...) all of those assumptions that go with normal distributions. But we had two other pieces of information. First, violence accounted for only 2% of deaths before the war and was the main cause of death after the invasion. That is something new, consistent with the dramatic rise in mortality and reduces the likelihood that the true number was at the lower end of the confidence range. Secondly, there is the Falluja data, which imply that there are pockets of Anbar, or other communities like Falluja, experiencing intense conflict, that have far more deaths than the rest of the country. We set that aside these data in statistical analysis because the result in this cluster was such an outlier, but it tells us that the true death toll is far more likely to be on the high-side of our point estimate than on the low side.

Um, AmericanHawk, I don't usually bother with answering your type, but dear god! Has anyone but liberals been concerned with Cambodia, East Timor or Rwanda? Are those Young Republicans I see in Harvard Square with their pamphlets and posters? Is Noam Chomsky a conversative now - because he's been talking about East Timor as long as anyone?

Now, now why should we "quibble" over how many deaths are mounting daily, er hourly. They are only brown skinned anyway and probably religious fanatics to boot.

Why, we should all be thankful and give praise to our great Capitalistic God Greed that sooooo many are able to make a ton of money from this adventure. The many contractor's given no-bid, cost plus, never audited contracts, the mercenaries, consultants and even all of that vastly increased re-up pay. There is a ton of money being made from this fiasco. And they will all have their shills deriding this important study.
Not to mention the oil companies getting ready to sign off with the Iraqi "government" for lucrative oil deals.
$ar pays for the GOP.

Did it ever occur to you, Mr. Drum, that these are the Iraqis who are doing the dying at the hands of coalition forces?

prove it.

This was in the same article.

"The same group in 2004 published an estimate of roughly 100,000 deaths in the first 18 months after the invasion. That figure was much higher than expected, and was controversial. The new study estimates that about 500,000 more Iraqis, both civilian and military, have died since then -- a finding likely to be equally controversial."

Do ya think this group may have an alterior motive for inflating the numbers? Do ya think?

"And they will all have their shills deriding this important study." thethird

Just like all the liberal shills crying drama queen tears over exaggerated numbers.

655,000 deaths.

Coalition responsible for 31% or over 200,000.
Others responsible for 69% or, over 450,000.

From a strictly humanitarian basis, wouldn't it make much more sense to go after the group killing the MOST people?

From a strictly humanitarian basis, wouldn't it make much more sense to go after the group killing the MOST people?

Exactly. In fact, I would argue that we have been doing exactly that. If it wasn't for the fact that we killed the 31%, the total death toll would probably have been much higher.

BTW, Kevin, you should probably focus more of your energy on "Teh Ghay" like JMM. National security will never be a strong point for democrats.

"Has anyone but liberals been concerned with Cambodia, East Timor or Rwanda?" - pye....

Oh I know and thanks for the vaunted UN that beacon of light that the left constantly praises, those places will be peaceful in short order because of the integrity and sheer will for peace that the UN harbors. Oh wait. Nevermind.

If it wasn't for the fact that we killed the 31%, the total death toll would probably have been much higher.

heh. funny.

PDF available now.
href="http://www.thelancet.com">http://www.thelancet.com
It's all there.
Charts, graphs, methods, footnotes.
Conclusion:

"In Iraq, as with other conflicts, civilians bear the consequences
of warfare. In the Vietnam war, 3 million civilians died; in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, conflict has been responsible for 3.8 million deaths; and
an estimated 200,000 of a total population of 800,000 died in conflict in East
Timor. Recent estimates are that 200,000 people have died in Darfur over the
past 31 months. We estimate that almost 655,000 people -— 2.5% of the population
in the study area —- have died in Iraq."

"If it wasn't for the fact that we killed the 31%, the total death toll would probably have been much higher." - AH

"heh. funny." - cleek

Heh. True.

the article [PDF].

Idiot trolls come in and repeat the same long-debunked arguments over and over. I see Scaife & Co. are getting their money's worth.

This entire administration belongs in the dock at the Hague. Too bad they don't use hanging any more.

Damn occupied people don't know what's good for them and fall in line....

Why isn't this working out like WWII? Maybe because Iraq isn't Japan or Germany, and George W. Bush isn't Truman. More like the combined brain trust of the Keystone Cops and Three Stooges.

But let's blame the occupied people who never attacked us and had nothing to do with 9/11. Simple explanations for simple people.

There is, of course, a fair amount of inherent uncertainty in this study. There's a roughly 10% chance the true figure could be half the reported size and a 10% chance it could be double the reported size.

The coalition is only responsible for 200,000 dead Iraqis, no biggie.

I care much more about percieved injustices that America is at fault for then actual atrocities that occur everyday throughout the world.

In fact the estimated recent 200,000 dead Iraqis are of much more concern to me than the estimated 500,000 Iraqis that Saddam had raped and killed over the years.

Does the study tally the number of Iraqi civilians killed by 'security contractors', or is that lumped in with the numbers for coalition forces?

Just wondering.

FYI, someone else has decided to post under my name. that's cool - i'm honored. but, of course that 10:41 is not an authentic cleek post.

and, just so you all know, the person who posted under my name used the email address "giantsdiehard@yahoo.com". and, a quick trip ddown Google Lane shows one other hit for that email address. it's a post on watchblog.com. anyone care to guess who's name is on that post?

how about you, Jay, care to guess ?

Does the study tally the number of Iraqi civilians killed by insurgents directly following any prominent Democrat proclaiming that we are illegally occupying Iraq and deriding our soldiers for atrocities?

Hijacked handles suck, don't they cleek.

Get use to it.

fuck off, loser.

"fuck off, loser." - cleek

uh oh, an angry liberal. Hide the Chrisitians, but at least the Muslims will be safe.

LOL, the thread killing idiots have struck again.

So two conservatives can derail the current topic in the liberal cesspool?

Not a very deep pool huh?

National security will never be a strong point for democrats.

Rasmussen:
Trust More on National Security
President Bush 41%
Democrats in Congress 43%

there is no question that the death toll in Iraq is horrific.

however, there is also no fricking way that it is that high.

National security will never be a strong point for democrats.

Newsweek:
which party is more trusted to fight the war on terror:
Dems: 44
Reps: 37

trust in handling Iraq:
Dems: 47
Reps: 34

Ipsos-AP:
Iraq:
Dems: 48
Reps: 38

handling terrorism:
Dems 43
Reps:41

protecting the US:
Dems: 43
Reps: 41

you were saying?

however, there is also no fricking way that it is that high.

Based on what data?

Jay on October 11, 2006 at 10:48 AM:

Does the study tally the number of Iraqi civilians killed by insurgents directly following any prominent Democrat proclaiming that we are illegally occupying Iraq...

My guess is, probably not. I think the intent of the study was to start from when Dubya donned his codpiece and proclaimed "Mission Accomplished" from the deck of that carrier.

...and deriding our soldiers for atrocities?

At least you are beginning to recognize what US troops were ordered to do at Abu Ghraib and other prison facilities as 'atrocities', Jay. That's some progress on your part at least.

Now, my initial question was serious, as I haven't had the time to read the study myself. Were 'security contractors' accounted for in this study, and how were they categorized?

"Where was the self-flaggellating left when Pol Pot killed millions of his own people?"
Posted by: jay

You see an analogy between Pol Pot and Bush, Jay?

Wonderin:

If the death toll was that high we would see vastly higher numbers of refugees and far more people in hospitals and bodies at the morgues...far more.

As well, U.S. troops simply aren't involved in that many live-fire incidents. (most attacks on U.S. troops are IEDs or mortars, not small arms)

If the death toll was that high we would see vastly higher numbers of refugees and far more people in hospitals and bodies at the morgues...far more.

how many bodies are we seeing at morgues ?
how many refugees are we seeing ?

"Where was the self-flaggellating left when Pol Pot killed millions of his own people?"
Posted by: jay" - Ace

Hijacked handle.

Pay attention.

cleek:

we are not seeing vast numbers of refugees. far from it. (a fair amount of the wealthy of Iraq have emigrated but no one's been opening up refugee camps....unlike other war zones with that kind of casualty count)

as for the morgues, yes, the death count in Baghdad is something like 50-80 a day. maybe more.

but it sure seems reasonable to conclude that Baghdad makes up half the death count for the entire country.

we are not seeing vast numbers of refugees

how many are we seeing, what is the appropriate number, and how many should we be seeing if people are dying at the rate the Lancet says ? and, what is the relationship between number of people killed per refugees expected ?

Refugees:

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- More than 300,000 Iraqis have fled their homes to other parts of the country to escape violence since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein, with the rate swelling in the past six months of Shiite-Sunni killings, the immigration minister said Tuesday.

In addition, some 890,000 Iraqis have moved to Jordan, Iran and Syria since Saddam's fall, Immigration Minister Abdul-Samad Sultan told reporters.

http://tinyurl.com/esmyu

The number of Iraqis who've fled the country is low compared with the number that foreign governments are reporting taking in, and the real figure may well be over a million.

Also, it's not clear if the figure for internally displaced people includes the 900 families who've been displaced by shelling from Iranians on the northern border or the Arab families kicked out of Kirkak by the Kurds and living in tents outside the city.

but no one's been opening up refugee camps

No one but the Red Crescent and the Ministry of Displacement and Migration.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/HMYT-6U8PYT?OpenDocument

coalition troops are killing nearly 5,000 Iraqis per month

Americans troops, following the orders of President Bush, are killing nearly 5,000 Iraqis per month.

we are not seeing vast numbers of refugees.

Nathan, you shit-eating little troll, you have NO idea whatsoever what it is you're talking about (as ususal).

Iraq: Sectarian Violence Increasing Internally Displaced
By Sumedha Senanayake

PRAGUE, October 5, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- The huge increase in sectarian violence in Iraq, following the attack on the Al-Askari Mosque in Samarra on February 22, has forced thousands of Iraqis flee their homes, with many moving to the relatively secure Kurdish regions in the north to escape the bloodshed, according to Iraqi government sources and international humanitarian organizations.

The Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration reported on September 28 that nearly a quarter of a million Iraqis have been displaced since the Samarra attacks. Approximately 80,000 Iraqis registered with the ministry as refugees from July to August and 40,000 families have sought government aid in the last seven months.

The data is based on the ministry's estimate that the average Iraqi family has six members, thereby bringing the latest tally to 240,000 people compared with 162,000 people at the end of July.

However, ministry spokesman Sattar Nowruz said the number of displaced persons could be far higher as many Iraqis may have fled abroad rather than register with the ministry. "The reason for this increase is that the security situation in some provinces has deteriorated considerably, forcing people to flee their homes in fear for their lives," Nowruz told Reuters on September 28.

Whoa, Windhorse.

Great minds and all...

Pale Rider:

compare the numbers of Iraqi refugees to Palestinians after 1967, the Congo, Rwanda et al and then get back to me.

If the death toll was that high we would see vastly higher numbers of refugees and far more people in hospitals and bodies at the morgues...far more.

Which war are you following? Try reading something that's been written since 2004, mouth breather.

Death Squads In Iraqi Hospitals
Intelligence Seen By CBS News Says Hospitals Are Command Centers For Shiite Militia

An assembly line of rotting corpses lined up for burial at Sandy Desert Cemetery is what civil war in Iraq looks like close up.

The bodies are only a fraction of the unidentified bodies sent from Baghdad every few days for mass burial in the southern Shiite city of Kerbala, CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports.

They come from the main morgue that's overflowing, relatives too terrified to claim their dead because most are from Iraq's Sunni minority, murdered by Shiite death squads.

And the morgue itself is believed to be controlled by the same Shiite militia blamed for many of the killings: the Mahdi Army, founded and led by anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

The takeover began after the last election in December when Sadr's political faction was given control of the Ministry of Health. The U.S. military has documented how Sadr's Mahdi Army has turned morgues and hospitals into places where death squads operate freely.

Dude, you have zero credibility at this point--clench up your girlish little butt cheeks and quit crapping on the thread with your way-off-the-mark take on things...NOTHING you've said is even close to reality. Oh, wait--reality is what you make of it when you're a worthless kid who SUPPORTS the war but is far too privileged to consider military service. You have a degree--go into the Reserves and take a comission. The Army will make a you a Captain and probably hand you Major in about three years. Then you might have some credibility, because I guarantee you--all it's gonna take is for you to cross up some NCO and then you'll find out what a real ass kicking is all about.

compare the numbers of Iraqi refugees to Palestinians after 1967, the Congo, Rwanda

pathetic.

don't neglect the blame that should be directed at a conquered people who are rebelling

TangoMan makes a good point. The Iraqis should put all of their energy and resources into killing the foreign occupiers who have invaded and destroyed their country.

Nathan on October 11, 2006 at 11:58 AM:

..compare the numbers of Iraqi refugees to Palestinians after 1967, the Congo, Rwanda et al and then get back to me.

The US invaded and occupied those countries as well? Try a more valid comparison, and then get back to us, Nathan.

Actually, it would be interesting to get a ballpark figure on how many people worldwide have become refugees or internally displaced as a result of Dubya's policies, inattention, or inaction...

compare the numbers of Iraqi refugees to Palestinians after 1967, the Congo, Rwanda et al and then get back to me.

Shithead--

Did we invade those areas? Did we cause those problems? Did we buy those items at the Pottery Barn after we broke them? Didn't think so.

Do you have even the SLIGHTEST notion of what you're talking about?

Guess not.

as for the morgues, yes, the death count in Baghdad is something like 50-80 a day. maybe more

The morgue figures do not include those killed by bombing (a substantial figure), those killed on the street near their families who immediately claim the body, nor does it include the bodies pulled from the Tigris.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/09/12/iraq.main/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/09/11/iraq.deaths.ap/index.html

http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/world/article.jsp?content=20061016_134735_134735

Hey Rider, great minds indeed.

The number of posters here who condone what Lancet calls the greatest genocide of the 21st century is nauseating and repellent.

Today's WSJ article on the Lancet report includes this sobering statistic for comparison:

"Human Rights Watch has estimated Saddam Hussein's regime killed 250,000 to 290,000 people over 20 years."

If you take the time to read the study in Lancet, you may find that not only was the methodology sound, it was, if anything, conservative in its interpretation of the statistics.

The study estimates that "Deaths attributable to the coalition accounted for 31% of post-invasion violent deaths." This translates to a low (according to all the variables of the study) of 121,823 Iraqi people killed by the Bush Administration through July of 2006 to a high of as many as 292,217 violent deaths directly perpetrated by the American coalition. The most likely number of fatalities is 203,050. These numbers do not, repeat DO NOT include deaths from suicide bombers, sectarian infighting or similar causes.

It took Saddam Hussein 20 years to kill 250,000 Iraqis (We'll use the low end of the estimates here.), or a rough average of 1,043 people a month -- an indisputably horrific number.

George Bush, however, has dwarfed Saddam Hussein's massive achievements in the rarefied realm of genocide with the conservative (ah! the irony) accomplishment of 121,823 infidels dispatched in a mere 40 months for a superstar average of 3046 corpses per month -- very nearly 3 times Saddam Hussein's score in the genocide sweepstakes.

Toss in Iraqi civil war casualties, and under American occupation, Iraqi people are dying gruesome deaths between 9.4 times and 22.6 times faster than they were under the murderous despot from whom we liberated them. Now there's progress!

Just imagine the stellar stats Bush could rack up if only those pesky American liberals would just shut up and let him stay the course.

Windhorse,

Send me some good words on the back channel - my commo is down - we have to circle the wagons and kill the beast...

Shorter Nathan--

Well...we...we...painted the schools...and...and...there aren't as many refugees as when the Contras attacked Nicaragua and...and...did I meantion? The Iraqis have a LOT more painted schools than they did two years ago...and...and...MOMMY!

Here's another data point for the refugee figures:

LONDON (CNS) --- Half of all Iraqi Christians have fled their country since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, said the auxiliary bishop of Baghdad.

Chaldean Catholic Auxiliary Bishop Andreos Abouna of Baghdad said that before the invasion there were about 1.2 million Christians in the predominantly Shiite Muslim state. Since then the overall number has dropped to about 600,000, he said.

"What we are hearing now is the alarm bell for Christianity in Iraq," the bishop said. "When so many are leaving from a small community like ours, you know that it is dangerous -- dangerous for the future of the church in Iraq."

The bishop said 75 percent of Christians from Baghdad had fled the capital to escape the almost daily outbreaks of sectarian violence.

Since the beginning of the war, the number of Chaldean Catholics, who make up the country's most numerous Christian denomination, had dropped below half a million from 800,000, he said. Many sought new lives mostly in the neighboring countries of Syria, Jordan and Turkey, he added.

Bishop Abouna said he thought it was unlikely that many of those who had emigrated would return.

Obviously the Chaldean Catholic Bishop of Baghdad is nothing but a left-leaning Clintonista.

And can someone tell me why we haven't fired the Director of the FBI?

FBI Agents Still Lacking Arabic Skills
33 of 12,000 Have Some Proficiency

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 11, 2006; Page A01

Five years after Arab terrorists attacked the United States, only 33 FBI agents have even a limited proficiency in Arabic, and none of them work in the sections of