{"id":1602,"date":"2006-10-11T22:47:19","date_gmt":"2006-10-12T03:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1602"},"modified":"2006-10-11T22:48:29","modified_gmt":"2006-10-12T03:48:29","slug":"mixed-reviews-of-iraq-death-toll-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1602","title":{"rendered":"Mixed Reviews of Iraq Death Toll Study"},"content":{"rendered":"

655,000<\/a>, give or take hundreds and hundreds of thousands. Needless to say, but I’m very skeptical.<\/p>\n

President Bush says he doesn’t believe it. Some experts have a problem with it. But several others say it seems sound.<\/p>\n

Such was the varied reception for a controversial new study that estimated the Iraq war has led to the deaths of nearly 655,000 Iraqis as of July.<\/p>\n

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad derived that estimate from a door-to-door survey, conducted by doctors, of 1,849 households in Iraq. Taking the number of deaths reported by household residents, they extrapolated to a nationwide figure.<\/p>\n

The researchers, reflecting the inherent uncertainties in such extrapolations, said they were 95 percent certain that the real number lay somewhere between 392,979 and 942,636 deaths.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is quite a range of uncertainty, and does not speak well for any<\/em> confidence in the work.<\/p>\n

Even the smaller figure is almost eight times the estimate some others have derived.<\/p>\n

The new study – which attributes roughly 600,000 of the deaths directly to violence and 55,000 more to other war-related causes – was released Wednesday on the Web site of The Lancet, a respected medical journal. But just how good is its conclusions?<\/p>\n

“I don’t consider it a credible report,” President Bush said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Neither does Gen. George W. Casey, the top American military commander in Iraq.<\/p>\n

“That 650,000 number seems way, way beyond any number that I have seen,” Casey said. “I’ve not seen a number higher than 50,000. And so I don’t give it that much credibility at all.”<\/p>\n

And neither does Michael E. O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, which also tracks Iraqi deaths.<\/p>\n

“I do not believe the new numbers. I think they’re way off,” he said.<\/p>\n

Other research methods on the ground, like body counts, forensic analysis and taking eyewitness reports, have produced numbers only about one-tenth as high, he said. “I have a hard time seeing how all the direct evidence could be that far off … therefore I think the survey data is probably what’s wrong.”<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Donald Berry, chairman of the statistics department at the University of Texas’ M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said he believes the study was done “in a reasonable way.” But he said the range of uncertainty given for the estimates was much too narrow, because of potential statistical biases in the survey.<\/p>\n

While it’s impossible to calculate a better range that accounts for that, he said, it wouldn’t be surprising if the low end dropped about four-fold to 100,000 deaths. A wider range of uncertainty would make the 655,000 figure less meaningful, he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even the latter, somewhat supportive statement recommends even greater uncertainty.<\/p>\n

For it’s part, the Iraqi government has politely called the numbers exaggerated<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, LGF questions the timing<\/a> of what could be a wildly inaccurate political hit masquerading as a study based on the fact that, well, it is right before an election and these same people put out a similarly questioned “study” right before a previous election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

655,000, give or take hundreds and hundreds of thousands. Needless to say, but I’m very skeptical. President Bush says he doesn’t believe it. Some experts have a problem with it. But several others say it seems sound. Such was the varied reception for a controversial new study that estimated the Iraq war has led to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle-east","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}