"james g. keegan jr." <keegan@nycap.rr.com> wrote in
news:Xns95E5DB800359Dkeegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4:

100,000 Civilian Deaths Estimated in Iraq

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7967-2004Oct28.html

Not quite. The Lancet computer model gave a range of 8000 to 194,000
deaths. That is a huge confidence interval and I'd say you'd be as well
plucking a figure from the air as you would be trusting this study.

The range of uncertainty is almost twice the reported estimated of
100,000 (actually 98,000 in the study, though the conclusion rounds it
to 100,000). Would *you* trust that? And that's before going into the
methodology that produced those figures.

They also take Saddam's govt's word for population estimates in Jan
2003, and explicitly don't take into account any possible migration
(e.g. to escape the effects of the invasion/violence) that might have
occurred since. Would you trust that?

There are also other oddities when comparing with other sources. The
Lancet study estimates a pre-war infant mortality rate of 29 deaths for
every 1000 live births, with a post war estimate of 57 deaths per 1000
live births. Yet UNICEF reported 108 deaths for every 1000 live births
in 1999 (http://www.unicef.org/newsline/99pr29.htm), and the CIA world
factbook gives a figure of 57.1 deaths for every 1000 live births in
2002 (http://www.umsl.edu/services/govdocs/wofact2002/fields/2091.html).

I'm not sure how trustworthy any of these figures are (though UNICEF's
study did at least use a much larger sample size -- 24000 households vs
1000 households -- than the Lancet), but the Lancet study gives the most
optimistic estimate of infant mortality rate for Iraq under sanctions
that I've ever seen. And remember the story pre-war, from many concerned
about Iraq, was that sanctions had led to 500,000 extra child deaths by
1999.

ISTM the figures produced at www.iraqbodycount.net (hardly a pro-war
site) are more reliable, due to their efforts to corroborate and
disentangle potential cases of one case being reported multiple times.
They may be an underestimate since not all deaths get reported to the
press of course. But ISTM 15000 to 20000 is probably the right ball park
on that basis.

That is a shocking figure as it is, though still a long long way short
of the deaths caused by Saddam, and the deaths he's likely to have
caused had we left him in place indefinitely.

"james g. keegan jr." <keegan@nycap.rr.com> wrote in
news:Xns95E5DB800359Dkeegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4:

100,000 Civilian Deaths Estimated in Iraq

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7967-2004Oct28.html

Not quite. The Lancet computer model gave a range of 8000 to 194,000
deaths. That is a huge confidence interval and I'd say you'd be as well
plucking a figure from the air as you would be trusting this study.

That is a shocking figure

"james g. keegan jr." <keegan@nycap.rr.com> wrote in message
news:Xns95E5DB800359Dkeegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4...

100,000 Civilian Deaths Estimated in Iraq

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7967-2004Oct28.html

"The analysis, an extrapolation based on a relatively small number of
documented deaths"

"Other experts immediately challenged the new estimate, saying the small
number of documented deaths upon which it was based make the conclusions
suspect. "

"The methods that they used are certainly prone to inflation due to
overcounting," said Marc E. Garlasco, senior military analyst for Human
Rights Watch

"The researchers and the Lancet editors acknowledged that the study has
clear limitations, including a relatively small sample of violent deaths
that were examined directly and the researchers' reliance on individual
memories for some information."

"james g. keegan jr." <keegan@nycap.rr.com> wrote in message
news:Xns95E5DB800359Dkeegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4...

100,000 Civilian Deaths Estimated in Iraq

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7967-2004Oct28.html

"The methods that they used are certainly prone to inflation due to
overcounting," said Marc E. Garlasco, senior military analyst

"james g. keegan jr." <keegan@nycap.rr.com> wrote in message
news:Xns95E5DB800359Dkeegannycaprrcom@130.133.1.4...

100,000 Civilian Deaths Estimated in Iraq

"The analysis, an extrapolation based on a relatively small number of
documented deaths"

Translation: "TOTAL AND UTTER *****"

And what happened to the 1,500,000 murdered by Saddam, your left-wing
hero?

Why have you left-wing hate-mongers and terrorist appeasers never
mentioned them? Because you leftwing, America-hating liberals never cared
about them.

--
My skin crawls when I think of the first week after 9/11. I was looking
out of the window and there were people walking down the street carrying
American flags. It reminded me of spontaneous, angry Nazis and I thought,
'Oh, man, we are in a lot of trouble'. There's a whole bunch of people who
have flags hanging from their cars and who are mistaking fascism for
patriotism."

- Rickie Lee Jones, Fanatical America-Hating Nutcase & Proud Liberal
Democrat

www.liberalscum.com