Civilian Deaths In Perspective

Perspective, indeed. You apparently are are assuming that the death toll under Saddam was about 60,000 a year. You know what they say when you assume. Estimates of total civilian Iraqi deaths under Saddam are in the 300,000 range.

The 30,000 figure is undoubtedly way too low. It is the number reported by IraqBodyCount.org, which relies only on _published_ reports of _combat related_ deaths. A much better estimate of excess civilian deaths in Iraq related to the US war was published in Lancet and, using conservative estimates, placed the number at 100,000 in the first 18 months of the war.

It is also worth noting that there were probably almost no deaths in Iraq caused by islamist terrorists in the years leading up to our occupation.

The numbers are impossible to use accurately. I read a quote for civilian death in 2004 from insurgants at 28, 000 already, so did they only kill 2000 in the last year? No, the numbers are used inaccurately; second, less dead is not good. It may be better than shitty, but it isn't good. It may turn out good in the end but we haven't reached that point yet, not untill we leave and it doesn't get worse. Besides, some estimates from the other side are over 100,000 civilians dead. Of course we don't believe them cause they are just middle eastern people (the ones we are proud to be protecting) so we will listen to our government (who would look much better the lower that number is) who wouldn't lie to us. Stop with the numbers, they are still dying and we aren't out yet, lets not get a boner about it yet.

Can you cite that quote Tyler? Are you sure the 2004 quote was correct? Why do you find the other quote more credible? Why is the 100,000 number more credible?

Actually, Jim, the Lancet study was awful and is generally considered by analysts capable of seeing beyond their own political bias to be total crap. But even if we use that Lance study (wich was released about a year ago) and say that there are approximately 50,000 civilian casualties in Iraq/year since the invasion (the study was released when the invasion was about 2 years old) then we still have a net loss from the number who would have died under Saddam.

In summary, even using the most inflated measure of civilian casualties we're still saving lives. Further, keep in mind that all of these body count numbers, from from Iraq Body Count and Lancet, include in their counts the enemy combatants killed by our troops.

Rob, I don't accept your premise that comparing these numbers is a legitimate calculus for deciding whether our war in Iraq is a good thing or not.

But you are wrong about the Lancet study--it was very well done, statistically valid, and as far as I can tell, there has been virtually no criticism of it by anyone without a pro-Bush or pro-war bias.

_The Economist_, in a thoughtful article about the Lancet study, reminds us of Stalin's comment that one death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is only a statistic. I think each of W's 30,000 deaths is also a tragedy. The statistics don't change that.

So...in summary, the Lancet study is good because you say it is, and anybody who disagrees with its findings is obviously biased.

Way to keep an open mind, Jim.

Rob, I would be interested in reading of sample of articles criticizing the Lancet study. Do you mind providing it? Thanks.

Here is a round up of what I've posted on the subject. My own commentary coupled with the external links there should get you started.

This article from Fred Kaplan at Slate is also an informative read. Excerpt:

The authors of a peer-reviewed study, conducted by a survey team from Johns Hopkins University, claim that about 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the war. Yet a close look at the actual study, published online today by the British medical journal the Lancet, reveals that this number is so loose as to be meaningless.

The report's authors derive this figure by estimating how many Iraqis died in a 14-month period before the U.S. invasion, conducting surveys on how many died in a similar period after the invasion began (more on those surveys later), and subtracting the difference. That difference—the number of "extra" deaths in the post-invasion period—signifies the war's toll. That number is 98,000. But read the passage that cites the calculation more fully:

We estimate there were 98,000 extra deaths (95% CI 8000-194 000) during the post-war period.

Readers who are accustomed to perusing statistical documents know what the set of numbers in the parentheses means. For the other 99.9 percent of you, I'll spell it out in plain English—which, disturbingly, the study never does. It means that the authors are 95 percent confident that the war-caused deaths totaled some number between 8,000 and 194,000. (The number cited in plain language—98,000—is roughly at the halfway point in this absurdly vast range.)

This isn't an estimate. It's a dart board.

This collection of links will also put you onto some illuminating commentary on the study.

Thanks, Rob. Fred Kaplan is obviously no statistician. Neither am I but I do know that his understanding of a confidence interval is laughable, and wrong. I'll look at your other sources another time.

Actually, as Jim notes, Kapalan isn't a statistician and that piece in Slate has been widely panned. Moreover, Rob uses a circular argument by citing his own opinions as a reference.

The passage from Kapaln that Rob quotes is embarrassingly wrong; most entry level students of statistics can easily spot the error. As an economist stated:

The confidence interval describes a range of values which are "consistent" with the model[1]. But it doesn't mean that all values within the confidence interval are equally likely, so you can just pick one. In particular, the most likely values are the ones in the centre of a symmetrical confidence interval. The single most likely value is, in fact, the central estimate of 98,000 excess deaths. Furthermore, as I pointed out in my original CT post, the truly shocking thing is that, wide as the confidence interval is, it does not include zero. You would expect to get a sample like this fewer than 2.5 times out of a hundred if the true number of excess deaths was less than zero (that is, if the war had made things better rather than worse).

The 'Chicagoboyz' link has been debunked here.

Gentlemen, from the variety of estimates that I have seen quoted from a very wide variety of sources, isn't it possible that no one really knows how many Iraqis died under Saddam or under us. These were people who for the most part did nothing that should have gotten them killed. It seems that the gist of this discussion is that Bush is not as bad as Saddam because he isn't killing innocent civilians in as great of numbers? This is an illegal and unjustified war and because the government is conducting this war in our names. we are all guilty of causing these deaths.

Jeff, President Bush isn't "killing civilians" in a fashion that is even remotely like Saddam Hussein's. Comparing the two is very inappropriate. Saddam murdered. He engaged in genocide. The 30,000 civilians killed during the U.S. invasion/occupation of Iraq were collateral damage, not the targets of U.S. military action. They include those blown up by the terrorists in their cowardly suicide attacks. They also include a lot of insurgent deaths as well that were inflicted when these people attacked U.S. forces.

In a battle where the enemy wears no uniform and pretends to be civilian how to we discern who among the dead are the enemy and who were innocent bystanders?

The point is, fewer people have died in Iraq during our occupation than would have died under Saddam. Any way you want to look at the numbers, this is true.

Huh?

Rob, I've looked at your other criticisms of the Lancet study and they do not hold up either. The fact that Fallujah, an especially deadly neighborhood, was included as a cluster in the study caused the report authors to treat that cluster as an "outlier"--so they essentially excluded it for much of their analysis. Your criticisms of the Lancet study are of a type with the Bush league's treatment of science: "Don't bother us with he facts, just do what we tell you."

Jeff: Your comments are well-taken. As the authors of the Lancet study note (indeed as any authors using statistical inference would) there are limitations and caveats to fixing a number in a region that is a chaotic war zone.

Frankly, I don't want the US to be compared in the same breath with Saddam. Unfortunately, for many US conservatives, this war is no different than a sports contest where numbers are tallied up.

I find it unsettling that Rob Port would use the same term ("collateral damage") used by Timothy McVeigh to describe OK City bombing victims, referring to Iraqi civilian deaths.

A little late, but Seth, my 28,000 figure (was actually 26,000 sorry) comes from The New Yorker this month, the numbers they use are from 2004-05 and quoted from the Government - our government (the very same that has claimed only 4000 dead of thier own accord). "In October, the Pentagon published its first statistics for Iraq's war dead; it estimated that nearly twenty-six thousand Iraqis had been killed by insurgents between January, 2004, and September, 2005. The figure did not include Iraqis killed by Americans." Isn't the new number 30,000 including US caused death now? Besides, what I was getting at is that the numbers game is futile. I never said the 100,000 number is 'more' credible I was just pointing out that the numbers seem to vary depending on who you are asking and why are they less important than us if we want their freedom so badly? I'm sick of people pissing and moaning about Bush's new theary about bringing freedom to them but we can't accept thier opinions yet as equals. Why protect them if they are just sand-niggers? They are equal human beings and their numbers are just as important as ours, so the real number might be in the middle somewhere, but who the fuck cares about the numbers. They are getting a government that is already using illegal torture tactics they probably learned from thier mentors (USA). Quit protecting Bush instead of a real principle (even republicans are going against him now because they have some principle they respect over one man). People have thier heads so far up Bush's ass they forget what even being a republican means. I'm not a republican but Lincoln was and Bush is so far out of wack with him it is ridiculous. We came into this thinking they were a threat, remember that? "Those" people are a threat to the mightiest military in the world? Really? Follow one line of logic and stick with it please.