[Vision2020] Important Additional Note: Civilian Death Toll In Iraq

[Ted Moffett]

All:

The "data set" web link I gave for the Iraqbodycount web site will first
bring a page requesting donations.  Don't let this dissuade you from
clicking at the bottom of this donation page to enter the web site proper.
This web site is a very serious effort to accurately document the civilian
death toll in Iraq

Ted Moffett


On 12/16/06, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> All:
>
> The data set offered by Iraqbodycount is worth an examination.  There are
> actual incident by incident death counts exhaustively documented.  Minimum
> and maximum civilian death tolls are given:
>
>   50721 56219
>
> http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/
>
> Iraqbodycount offers a defense of their methods of obtaining their
> numbers:
>
> http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/defended/
>
> Discussion of the Lancet study from Iraqbodycount:
>
>
> http://www.iraqbodycount.org/press/pr14.php?PHPSESSID=2d77d564fcd14ef8a770afdcc7b36f73
>
> --------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
>
>
>
> On 12/16/06, Andreas Schou <ophite at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 12/16/06, g. crabtree <jampot at adelphia.net> wrote:
> > > From Slate magazine (no friend to conservatives)
> > >
> > > 100,000 Dead-or 8,000How many Iraqi civilians have died as a result of
> > the
> > > war?
> > > By Fred Kaplan
> > > Posted Friday, Oct. 29, 2004, at 6:49 PM ET
> > > 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.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > You can read the rest of the article at
> > http://www.slate.com/id/2108887/
> >
> > G --
> >
> > This is in reference to a mortality study done in 2004; a different
> > study than the one done in 2006. The one in 2006 used a sample size of
> > 4,000, spread across the country, had a 99.9% confidence interval, and
> > required people claiming deaths in their families to produce death
> > certificates. The main difference is in the number of cluster points
> > (that is, physical locations where families were surveyed) used to
> > survey families, which was limited by the fact that travel in Iraq is
> > so difficult.
> >
> > Of course, if the US government was collecting numbers on civilian
> > mortality, as they have in every conflict since World War II, we
> > wouldn't have to rely on investigators from Johns Hopkins. But,
> > peculiarly, they have decided that they just don't want to know how
> > many civilians are dying in this war. One would think that that number
> > would be relevant to someone.
> >
> > -- ACS
> >
> > =======================================================
> > List services made available by First Step Internet,
> > serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
> >               http://www.fsr.net
> >          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> > =======================================================
> >
>
>
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