Iraqi death toll at 655,000 +/-
Oct. 11th, 2006 09:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chickenfeetJohns Hopkins' researchers have updated the death toll due to the Iraqi war to an estimated figure of 655,000 since the invasion in 2003. The report will again be criticised by those with an interest in keeping the numbers down but if, as reported, it used the same approach as the previous Lancet study there is really no reason to suppose that the data doesn't mean what it says it means. Let's get that straight so that anyone reading this is primed against the mislogic that will be used to attack the study.
The study says, using standard epidemiological methods, that since the invasion the number of deaths, subject to usual statistical error bounds, is 655,000 more than would have been expected in the same period before the invasion. It's based on extrapolating to the whole population an increase in the crude death rate in the sample population. In this case the death rate increased from 5.5 per 1000 to 13.3 per thousand. That is a huge increase that even allowing for sampling error simply cannot be due to chance. For context, and using as examples countries with a similar age structure to Iraq's, it's equivalent to increasing from Egypt's death rate to Nigeria's.
Don't be misled by people who trash this figure because it is an order of magnitude higher than the Iraqi Body Count numbers or anything else based on body count. This figure measures something very different. IBC attempts to count the number of people killed in acts of violence based on morgue returns. In doing so it is producing a lower bound figure for those killed directly by coalition military activity or by sectarian violence. The Johns Hopkins' study estimates the total excess deaths due to the decline in the quality of life generally in Iraq since the invasion. It doesn't attempt to assign causes of death and, in effect, treats a death because of deterioration in the supply of clean water in exactly the same way as someone shot by US Marines.
This study then is a measure of how thoroughly and comprehensively misgoverned Iraq has been under the post invasion regimes of the US and, now, the quasi government in Baghdad.
ETA: Full report here as a PDF. Key extract below.
The study says, using standard epidemiological methods, that since the invasion the number of deaths, subject to usual statistical error bounds, is 655,000 more than would have been expected in the same period before the invasion. It's based on extrapolating to the whole population an increase in the crude death rate in the sample population. In this case the death rate increased from 5.5 per 1000 to 13.3 per thousand. That is a huge increase that even allowing for sampling error simply cannot be due to chance. For context, and using as examples countries with a similar age structure to Iraq's, it's equivalent to increasing from Egypt's death rate to Nigeria's.
Don't be misled by people who trash this figure because it is an order of magnitude higher than the Iraqi Body Count numbers or anything else based on body count. This figure measures something very different. IBC attempts to count the number of people killed in acts of violence based on morgue returns. In doing so it is producing a lower bound figure for those killed directly by coalition military activity or by sectarian violence. The Johns Hopkins' study estimates the total excess deaths due to the decline in the quality of life generally in Iraq since the invasion. It doesn't attempt to assign causes of death and, in effect, treats a death because of deterioration in the supply of clean water in exactly the same way as someone shot by US Marines.
This study then is a measure of how thoroughly and comprehensively misgoverned Iraq has been under the post invasion regimes of the US and, now, the quasi government in Baghdad.
ETA: Full report here as a PDF. Key extract below.
We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654 965 (392 979–942 636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2·5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601 027 (426 369–793 663) were due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-11 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-11 01:47 pm (UTC)Only in a stable population. Iraq has (had?) a young and growing population. By contrast, the UK with an almost static population has a CDR of 10.4 but higher life expectancy than Iraq had.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-11 01:57 pm (UTC)This really is tragic.
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Date: 2006-10-11 02:07 pm (UTC)Somehow, someway, some people will make it so the bigger numbers are a sign of improvement of some sort in the pseudo-positivistic world in which we have so munificently bestowed democracy upon the hitherto misguided and oppressed Iraqi people. *gag*
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Date: 2006-10-11 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-11 04:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-11 04:26 pm (UTC)