[Vision2020] Study Sees 'Excess' Iraqi Deaths

[Pat Kraut]

Check out the methodology!! The president of the United States cannot make
decisions based on stupidities.



If we do discover a complete theory..of everything...we shall all,
philosophers, scientists and just ordinary people,
be able to take part in the discussion of why it is that we and the universe
exist if we find the answer to that,
it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason...for then we would know
the mind of God.
Stephen Hawking
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Hansen" <thansen at moscow.com>
To: "Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 6:56 AM
Subject: [Vision2020] Study Sees 'Excess' Iraqi Deaths


>From today's (October 11, 2006) Spokesman Review -

To put this article into perspective:  Losing 600,000 people in a country of
30 million people is comparable to losing 18 million people here in the
United States.

Again I ask:  Why are we still there?

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Study sees 'excess' Iraqi deaths
Team estimates 655,000 as result of 2003 invasion

David Brown
Washington Post
October 11, 2006

WASHINGTON - A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists 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.

The estimate, produced by interviewing residents during a random sampling of
households throughout the country, is far higher than ones produced by other
groups, including Iraq's government.

It is more than 20 times the estimate of 30,000 civilian deaths that
President Bush gave in a speech in December. It is more than 10 times the
estimate of roughly 50,000 civilian deaths made by the British-based Iraq
Body Count research group.

The surveyors said they found a steady increase in mortality since the
invasion, with a steeper rise in the last year that appears to reflect a
worsening of violence as reported by the U.S. military, the news media and
civilian groups. In the year ending in June, the team calculated Iraq's
mortality rate to be roughly four times what it was the year before the war.

Of the total 655,000 estimated "excess deaths," 601,000 resulted from
violence and the rest from disease and other causes, according to the study.
This is about 500 unexpected violent deaths per day throughout the country.

The survey was done by Iraqi physicians and overseen by epidemiologists at
Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. The findings
are being published online today by the British medical journal the Lancet.

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.

Both this and the earlier study are the only ones to estimate mortality in
Iraq using scientific methods. The technique, called "cluster sampling," is
used to estimate mortality in famines and after natural disasters.

While acknowledging that the estimate is large, the researchers believe it
is sound for numerous reasons. The recent survey got the same estimate for
immediate post-invasion deaths as the early survey, which gives the
researchers confidence in the methods. The great majority of deaths were
also substantiated by death certificates.

"We're very confident with the results," said Gilbert Burnham, a Johns
Hopkins physician and epidemiologist.

A Defense Department spokesman did not comment directly on the estimate.

"The Department of Defense always regrets the loss of any innocent life in
Iraq or anywhere else," said Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros. "The coalition takes
enormous precautions to prevent civilian deaths and injuries."

Ronald Waldman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University who worked at the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for many years, called the survey
method "tried and true," and added that "this is the best estimate of
mortality we have."

This viewed was echoed by Sarah Leah Whitson, an official of Human Rights
Watch in New York, who said, "We have no reason to question the findings or
the accuracy" of the survey.

The survey was conducted between May 20 and July 10 by eight Iraqi
physicians organized through Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. They
visited 1,849 randomly selected households that had an average of seven
members each. One person in each household was asked about deaths in the 14
months before the invasion and in the period after.

The interviewers asked for death certificates 87 percent of the time; when
they did, more than 90 percent of households produced certificates.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Vandalville, Idaho

***************************************************

"Seldom, if ever, has a war ended leaving the victors with such a sense of
uncertainty and fear -- with such a realization that the future is obscure
and that survival is not assured."

- Edward R. Murrow

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