Wingnuts Attempt to Debunk Iraq Deaths Survey
11th October 2006
by gordo
Some people think that it’s best to just ignore the unpleasant stuff
A study (link) published in Lancet, arguably the most prestigious medical journal in the world, estimates that the Iraq war has caused 655,000 Iraqi deaths. Of course, reports of the study touched off a panic among right-wing bloggers, who have rushed to dismiss the study. Before examining these attempts, though, I’d like to point out a couple of things, and ask a couple of questions:
** With the publication of this story, the last justification for the war in Iraq evaporated. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There were no ties to al-Qaeda. The breakup of Iraq that we’ve fought 3 1/2 years to stave off is now imminent. And now we find that we have not saved the Iraqis from mass murder at the hands of a dictator, but instead have brought chaos and death on an apocalyptic scale.
** Hussein has been charged with killing 50,000 Kurds, and has been charged with genocide in connection with those killings. If the Lancet study was off by a factor of 5, the number of Iraqi civilian deaths would still exceed the number that are attributed to Hussein during his entire 24 year reign. (NOTE: Many credible sources put the death toll of Hussein’s Anfal Campaign at over 100,000, not 50,000. However, no credible source puts the total at over 200,000)
** This is just the beginning. There is no end in sight for this nightmare.
** This is only the toll on the Iraqi civilian population. Americans are also paying a price, albeit on an entirely different scale. 2,754 of our soldiers have been killed, and 1 in 4 (HT: Blondesense) of the returning veterans have filed for disability. For what? A fragmented Iraq? An escalation of global terrorism?
** What is the number of Iraqi civilian deaths that the wingnuts would consider acceptable? Would the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi civilians be justifiable? What about 100,000? If Saddam Hussein is to be executed for killing 50,000 Kurds, can we justify the killing of 50,000 Iraqis?
** If 655,000 Iraqis have been killed, is that justifiable? Which of the wingnuts is willing to come forward and say, “Even if the number is 655,000, that number would be justified.” Given the fact that the violence in Iraq is escalating, shouldn’t we decide whether or not 1 million civilian deaths would be justified before we press on in Iraq?
** Given the evaporation of our justifications for entering Iraq, and the fact that the situation is worsening despite our presence, how can we justify any action other than withdrawl?
***
As for the wingnut “debunkings”, it might be instructive to see what we can anticipate, given past experience:
A Newer World lists 5 wingnut talking points that we can expect, and dubunked them:
1. Right-Wing Myth–This study is a “pseudo-scientific hit piece” because it uses a methodology that expert
statisticiansright-wing bloggers think is bogus.Fact–”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.’”
2. Right-Wing Myth–Lancet is “a liberal group“–a left wing think tank–intent on smearing America.
Fact–”The Lancet first appeared on Oct 5, 1823. From the beginning, Wakley’s aim was to entertain, instruct, and reform. Instruction came in the form of transcribed medical lectures from the London teaching establishment; entertainment in the early days of the journal came in the form of theatre reviews and piquant political comment. The Lancet has been, first and foremost, a reformist medical newspaper. Thomas Wakley and his successors aimed to combine publication of the best medical science in the world with a zeal to counter the forces that undermine the values of medicine, be they political, social, or commercial.
The journal was, and remains, independent, without affiliation to a medical or scientific organisation. More than 180 years later, The Lancet is an independent and authoritative voice in global medicine. We seek to publish high-quality clinical trials that will alter medical practice; our commitment to international health ensures that research and analysis from all regions of the world is widely covered.”
3. Right-Wing Myth–This study is “highly dubious” because these researchers produced a study in 2004 that some people think was also highly dubious.
Fact–”Application of the mortality rates reported here to the period of the 2004 survey8 gives an estimate of 112 000 (69 000–155 000) excess deaths in Iraq in that period. Thus, the data presented here validates our 2004 study, which conservatively estimated an excess mortality of nearly 100 000 as of September, 2004.”
4. Right-Wing Myth–The study is meaningless because it has a huge margin of error.
Fact–The margin of error is indeed large. For all deaths the range is between 392,979 and 942,636 and for death by violence it is between 426,369 and 793,663. “But in fact there’s only about a 2% chance that the true figure is either half or double the reported figure.” This is statistics. It provides the best possible estimate. Nothing more. Nothing less. Would there be no controversy if only 400,000 people had died as a result of the invasion?
5. Right-Wing Myth–This study is “Absolute Bull.” It’s “hackery” “This is utter and complete crap. Period. No thinking person can possibly believe these numbers.” Why, you ask? BECAUSE I–GAIUS OF BLUE CRAB BOULEVARD–SAY SO!
Fact–”In Iraq, as with other conflicts, civilians bear the consequences of warfare. In the Vietnam war, 3 million civilians died; in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, conflict has been responsible for 3·8 million deaths; and an estimated 200 000 of a total population of 800 000 died in conflict in East Timor.33–35 Recent estimates are that 200 000 people have died in Darfur over the past 31 months.36 We estimate that almost 655 000 people— 2·5% of the population in the study area—have died in Iraq.”
Those myths have already proliferated across the right-wing echo chamber, and I have noticed a couple of others:
6. “This study’s conclusions can’t possibly be true, because the number of deaths is too high.”
This is the argument regularly made by Holocaust deniers. Among others, Allahpundit and Bob Owens have tried this one. They’re asking for 500,000 death certificates. Sure. As soon as they produce 5 million death certificates for Jews murdered in Europe during WWII.
Owens’ use of this argument is particularly egregious; in his article he refers to the fact that researchers asked for death certificates 87% of the time, and the certificates were produced in 90% of these cases.
7. “The study must be inaccurate, because it is politically motivated.”
Uncle Jimbo pulled this one from his colon over at Black Five:
The same folks who brought us outrageously inflated claims about the number of Iraqis killed in our initial invasion have, shockingly, now brought us outrageously inflated claims about the number killed in the two years since. And somehow the timing just happened to be the month before elections.
So, if the study had been published 6 months ago, Uncle Jimbo would have immediately howled in outrage over the fact that an unnecessary war had killed 655,000 people, right? If the study had been held until after the election, he would be saying that the timing proved that researchers were not politically motivated, correct?
In reality, wingnuts always say that bad news is reported by biased journalists, no matter when it’s published. They’ve been telling us for 3 1/2 years that the left-wing media (which appears to control the entire worldwide media apparatus, except Fox News, a few blogs, and some American radio talkers) has been covering up the amazing progress that’s being made in Iraq. That’s 3 1/2 years of steady progress toward victory over a foe that was virtually defenseless when we attacked. I think it’s about time that the wingnuts started to admit that not all of the reporting that they don’t like is inaccurate.
So far, I’ve found a lot of right-wing attacks on the study, but they’ve all been variations of one of these 7 debunked arguements. I wanted to group them by category type, but that’s not practical since so many of the attacks use multiple arguments. If anyone can spot a valid attack that doesn’t fall within these 7 categories, please let me know:
Some have yet to weigh in, but I’ll be very surprised to see any variation from the 7 categories of attack. Captain Ed has yet to weigh in, and Michelle Malkin promises an article soon. Manshake decided to outsource the job.
I don’t expect very many people to have the time to sort through all of those links in an attempt to find a new argument, but I do ask both of my readers to each click on a couple of them, and see if any of them are using an argument against the study that hasn’t already been debunked.
If you’re still not convinced that the study is valid, try reading this short analysis by Ethan Zuckerman.
***
As I pointed out above, the death toll on Iraq’s civilian population is accellerating, and there is no plan to withdraw. The final tally for the Iraq war could exceed one million. That would be more the total killed in the Rawanda genocide.
If the number is 400,000, it’s more than the number killed in Darfur.
If it’s more than 250,000, it exceeds the number of Milosevic’s victims.
If it’s more than 500,000, it’s more than the number of Iraqi civilians murdered by Hussein during his entire 24 year reign.
I find it appalling that so many have dismissed the findings of the story, simply because its conclusions make them uncomfortable. I can’t understand how a person could answer such a study by saying, in effect, “You’re wrong. I’d be surprised if we’ve more than 50,000.” As if 50,000 deaths could be justified by a non-existent threat. As if 50,000 deaths could be justified by the attacks of 9/11.
John Cole has studied the sort of people who can make such arguments longer than I have, and he has a Top 10 List of justifications for the carnage in Iraq.
(cross posted at Liberal Avenger)
October 11th, 2006 at 10:50 pm
As one of the wingnuts, this methodology is good for polling, which is exactly what this is, an opinion poll. Morgue and hospital records and death certificates would be a death count. This poll is touted as a death count for political reasons. Fine. But don’t call a political poll a death count when it relies on 1000+ interviews chosen randomly by totally apolitical workers, I’m sure.
Let’s send some neocons to the chemical weapons sites Hans Blix located and cluster from that x1000 and there’s your WMD.
But like I said, 60,000 or 600,000, isn’t it about time the world was unified in demanding and acting against Islamist terrorists who want Iraq as a base? How many more must they kill for us to realize what’s at stake here? This is like a Taliban/Qaeda base X 1000.
Right now, according to the Lacent -poll-, Iraq’s mortality rate is close to those of major metros in the US, when and if it becomes twice that, will that be the time so called anti-war activists will at least acknowledge leaving Iraq to civil wars and terrorists may yield twice that by the end of the year? And with their resources, what other suprises?
All I hear are criticisms, and how can anyone argue that any civilian death is one too many? But apparently few critics have a solution, including the head of this study, whose solution is total withdrawal when he foamingly addressed London’s pro-Hezbollah rally some weeks go.
As things are going now, it’s pretty bad. The only things worse I can imagine is continuing the same thing we’re doing there just wishing something would change or retreating, leaving every Iraqi who braves murders of their family for becoming a police officer or a teacher to their own devices Then when there are mass organized slaughters of minorities, seculars, intelligentsia, shia, kurd, sunni, polis, police, people who voted wrong, the so called anti-war can attack Western imperialism once again for abandoning Iraqis like they did Bush Sr.
What’s your alternative? Change the way things are fought in Iraq? I agree! Change the administration or the Congress? Whatever it takes! Abandon them? Get your head checked.
October 11th, 2006 at 11:25 pm
Raphael–
That’s argument #1 on the list. Here’s the debunking:
So it isn’t an opinion poll. It’s a survery. As Dr. Waldman points out, it is the the standard method of estimating mortality.
Furthermore, your assertion that this represents the same rate of mortality as one would find in any major American city is absurd. 600,000 is roughly 2.5% of the entire population of Iraq. That’s a mortality rate of nearly 1% per year, over and above the mortality rate in 2002.
It’s your position that the 655,000 estimate is too high. Since you think that this would put Iraq’s mortality on a par with most American cities, I can only conclude that you are so deluded that you believe Iraq to be a much safer place than New Haven or Los Angeles.
The rest of your reply is just an attempt to justify “60,000 or 600,000″ deaths by asserting, without evidence, that our departure from Iraq would create “a Taliban/Qaeda base X 1000,” whatever that means.
For good measure, you throw out argument #2, also thoroughly debunked. Apparently, you think that the Lancet will publish any study, regardless of merit, as long as it’s authored by a left-winger. That’s simply not the case.
My solution? Well, I think that the fact that the level of violence has increased every year that we’ve been in Iraq is pretty good evidence that we should get out of Iraq. We should do it as quickly as we feasibly can. If we had gotten out in 2005, we and the Iraqis would have been better off. If we had gotten out in 2004, we and the Iraqis would have been much better off.
And of course, the best scenario would have been for us to stay out of Iraq altogether. 655,000 Iraqis who are dead today would still be alive. Al-Qaeda would not have a significant presence in Iraq. And we would have had an extra 140,000 soldiers to help secure and rebuild Afghanistan.
October 12th, 2006 at 3:27 am
Good on you, Gordo. All round.
October 12th, 2006 at 5:00 am
About the timing of the survey:
There’s an agenda behind this thing as admitted by one of the lead researchers. As such, all information contained herein must be examined through that lense.
October 12th, 2006 at 6:01 am
By the end of this adventure, Bush would have killed more Iraqis than Saddam during his wars.
October 12th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Julio–
You appear to be quoting a story that appeared in Editor and Publisher. Here’s a letter debunking the notion that Roberts bent the 2004 story in order to affect the 2004 American presidential election:
In fact, the earlier study was conducted in 2004, of course, and rushed to publication before the last Presidential election. But the “politics” involved were Iraqi, not American, according to the researchers. As they explained it to me a few weeks later.
Rushing their study into print before the U.S. election meant it would stand a better chance of making news, Roberts says, but he also admits to an ulterior political motive: protecting the life of his co-researcher, Dr. Riyadh Lafta of Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. …
Survey research is a science, but it isn’t so complicated that a little reporting can’t bring matters clear. I hope that E&P — and AP and the other major U.S. media outlets — will do a little homework next time before letting the partisan — or the ignorant — spin their story away from them.
Edward Ericson, Jr.
City Paper
Baltimore, MD
In any case, your objection is a combination of #3 and #7. Read my post for a thorough debunking of these arguments.
October 12th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
I found a series of calculation errors in the table at the bottom of page 4. Lousy proofreading or poor writing. They do cast a small shadow on the rest of the numbers.
The statement that there were virtually no violent deaths in Iraq in the fiftenn months prior to the Liberation is laughable. Iraq had a criminal murder rate approaching zero?
The WMD argument is one of numbers. Hundreds have been found. At least two have been used against American troops. Is there a number that would justify, in your mind, the war? If not, then arguing over numbers is an exercise in futility on your part.
Significant evidence exists to suggest that Saddam’s thuggocracy and bin Laden’s maniacs had several contacts at low or medium levels. The Administration has been quite outspoken denying that any connection exists. It does, but so what? Saddam supported plenty of other terrorists.
Please do not forget who is setting off the car bombs and the suicide vests. It is not American soldiers. The notion that the terrorists would magicly disappear were it not for our continued presence in Iraq is nonsense. Bombing markets and schools has nothing to do with America and those who committ those murders made that choice freely.
October 12th, 2006 at 2:48 pm
There’s an agenda behind this thing as admitted by one of the lead researchers. As such, all information contained herein must be examined through that lense.
Let me see if I have this straight - having invalidated the claims that Hussein had WNDs and was a threat to the US, the only justification remaining for the invasion of Iraq was that it was for the benefit of the Iraqis. We now find good reason to believe that the invasion and aftermath has killed anywhere from 2 to 3 times as many Iraqis as were murdered by Hussein during his ENTIRE 35 year regime. The people responsible for this are running for re-election
And it is your claim that it is an unfair political tactic to inform voters of the consequences of their previous decisions?
October 12th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
The WMD argument is one of numbers. Hundreds have been found.
Cites, please.
October 12th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
Chuck–
I don’t see the calculation errors in that table. If you could be more specific, I’d appreciate it. A good place to ask questions about numbers and statistics is on this post at Alon Levy’s blog. Alon isn’t likely to agree with you, but he’s going to be a lot more helpful explaining calculations and statistics than I can be..
As for pre-invasion violent deaths, the study estimates those at around 1 per 10,000. That’s almost double the rate in the US.
As for WMD, the fact is that the UN and the Bush administration both conclude that Iraq had no viable WMD program. There are frequent attempts by right-wingers to revive the notion that there were WMD in Iraq (link link), but I have to think that the Bush administration would still be claiming that the WMD were there, if this was a viable position. The claims that Hussein was tied to al-Qaeda have also been debunked, and, as you point out, are no longer trotted out by the Bush administration.
The point about Hussein supporting other terrorist groups is moot. First of all, our own intelligence services have been saying for more than a year that the war in Iraq is breeding more terrorism. Second, none of the “other terrorist groups” have attacked the United States. Third, none can claim anywhere near 655,000 victims. The war simply can’t be justified by invoking Husein’s support for “other terrorist groups.”
The bombings are the predictable consequence of our actions. If the word “responsibility” means anything at all, then the Bush administration and its supporters have to take responsibility for the deaths that have followed the invasion. It’s untrue that Americans have not bombed markets and schools (virtually every type of structure has been hit by an American bomb during the past 3 years), but that’s beside the point.
The point is this: by the best estimate available, there are 655,000 people who are dead today because of the invasion. There were not daily bombings and assassinations in 2002, but there are now. I would argue that even the prewar rationales for the invasion given by the Bush administration would not have justified that kind of carnage. But that’s also a moot point, because those rationales have already evaporated, leaving us with no way to justify the taking of 655,000 lives.
October 12th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Phoenician–
You make a good point about the need to inform people before they vote, but I would argue that there is no evidence that the Lancet held the study until just before the election, or that they rushed the study.
In other words, there is no evidence that the study has been tainted by the political bias of the authors of the study, the researchers who reviewed it, or the editors of the Lancet.
October 12th, 2006 at 3:51 pm
You make a good point about the need to inform people before they vote, but I would argue that there is no evidence that the Lancet held the study until just before the election, or that they rushed the study.
The indication I have read is that the editors deliberately ensured the first study went through peer review and was published before the election. There was no indication that it was falsified or invalidated by this; wingnuts simply assume that if facts have a political agenda, they are not real.
October 13th, 2006 at 1:19 am
Do you mean 1 in 10,000 Iraqis died every year from violent causes, or 1 in 10,000 Iraqi deaths was from violent causes?
Most developed countries have a murder rate between 1 and 2 per 100,000, and a death rate around 10 per 1,000, which means 1 in 500 to 1,000 deaths is violent. In the US it’s 5.6 and 8.25 respectively, which means 1 death in 147 is violent.
On the other hand, now that I think about it, if you just count the murder rate, 10/100,000 is just less than double the US rate.
October 13th, 2006 at 2:52 am
Alon–
We’re looking at table 3, at the bottom of page 4.
It looks to me like they’re giving 0.1 per 1,000 as the figure for the pre-invasion violent mortality rate. The range they give is .0-.4 per 1,000, so I take that to mean that the best estimate is .05-.15 per 1,000. I suspect it’s on the low end of that, but I used the 10 in 100,000 rate.
Anyway, I’m glad to hear that I didn’t screw the math up.
October 13th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
Mark Goldblatt at National Review Online: The Fog of Stats
October 13th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
And, from the same article:
October 13th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
Fritz–
Tellingly, the National Review’s critique is by a person with no training in this field. Elsewhere in the article, he says that UN casualty figues “feel inflated.” He pretends that body counts based on media reports could be in any way reliable, given the challenges of reporting the news in Iraq.
At no time does he even address the methodology of the study. What he’s really doing is attacking the prewar estimate of the death toll, saying that it must be too low. If it wasn’t, he claims, it’s because it didn’t take into account the prewar sanctions.
He says that because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. See Alon Levy’s explanation as to why death rates in the Middle East tend to be low. Also, Goldblatt has no understanding of the effects of the sanctions, or their trend.
First, he makes a lot of noise about the the figures for children who died before age 5, and implies that this would be a small fraction of the total. Of course, one would expect that a large majority of the casualties of a sanctions regime would be under age 5.
So Goldblatt is playing games with his readers, but the games don’t start there. He uses inflated figures (see here for analysis) for the sanctions regime, figures that neither he nor anyone else at the National Review have ever accepted in the past. He also ignores the fact that the sactions had been eased to the point that by 2002, the toll of the sanctions was far less than it had been when Goldblatt’s numbers were gennerated. Here’s the CIA’s analysis of the sanctions regime:
So, one would not expect the death rate in Iraq to be the gigantic number that Goldblatt claims (One wonders why such a humanitarian as Goldblatt was unmoved by the figures for the sanctions back in 2001. Maybe he’s just recently gotten religion.).
And he’s just being silly when he claims that Hussein’s murderous regime could only have been toppled by invasion. Around the world, several regimes have made the transition away from brutal dictarship without being invaded. I don’t see Goldblatt saying that we ought to adopt a policy of regime change to free the oppressed millions of Libya, Haiti, Burma, China, or Russia. In fact, most of the folks at the National Review favor a policy of ending the oppression of the Chinese leaders by trading them to death. The bottom line is, it’s silly to compare the 655,000 deaths to whatever number Goldblatt chooses for the next 200 years of oppression at the hands of the Hussein clan.
The fact is, the Lancet study uses as a baseline the TOTAL mobidity rate from 2002, including the effect of sanctions, including the effects of Hussein’s tyranny. That’s explained in the study, so Goldblatt is just lying to his readers when he pretends that these effects haven’t been taken into account.
So Goldblatt’s “debunking” amounts to little more than clasping his hands over his ears and shouting, “LA LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”, because at no point does he challege the methodology actually used in the study.
I would ask Goldblatt, “What number of people can be justifiably killed in order to rid Iraq of a non-existent weapons program? What number of people can be justifiably killed in order to avenge an attack that the Iraq had nothing to do with? What number of people can be justifiably killed in order to defend this country from the non-existent threat posed by a virtually defenseless nation that is not in any way tied to al-Qaeda?”
The fact is, during the entirety of Hussein’s regime, he murdered fewer than 500,000 of his people. So, since the most reliable figures put the civilian death toll of the Iraq war beyond 500,000, how can the Iraq was be justified?
October 13th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
First, that figure is inflated. The UN study in question relied on figures supplied by Saddam’s information ministry, hardly a reliable source of anything. In 2001, the Nation cited independent studies, which had vastly lower death rates (350,000 children at the time; assuming that as many adults died, you get 70,000 dead per year). If I’m not mistaken, the final death toll of the sanctions turned out to be 567,000, which gives 45,000 dead per year. That figure is pretty reasonable, since it’s about the same as Iraq’s prewar death rate minus the average death rate in the region. What’s certain is that Iraq’s prewar death rate, 5.5/1,000, translated to 132,000 dead per year, so saying the sanctions killed 150,000 people per year is equivalent to saying that in prewar Iraq, nobody died of causes not related to the sanctions, and in addition 18,000 people were raised from the dead every year.
Second, the survey group’s excess death figure is over and above the background kill rate of both Saddam’s regime and the sanctions. It’s not that the occupation has killed 650,000 Iraqis; it’s that it has killed 650,000 Iraqis more than would’ve died in the same period of time under Saddam’s regime plus the sanctions.
October 15th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
This is from Dana:
Only God knows how many people have suffered an untimely death in Iraq, vis a vis how many would have had the Ba’ath Party regime remained in place, and God hasn’t been telling me what that number is. (Thus far, the Lord has been unwilling to provide me with six numbers between 1 and 49 either, so I am not surprised he hasn’t revealed the Iraqi death count to me.)
The methodology Lancet used is suspect, but that doesn’t prove that they came up with a number that is wrong; it also does not prove that the number is right, either. What we do have are liberals who want the number of deaths to be high, so as to “prove” that they were right in opposing the war, and conservatives who want the number to be much lower, not only because they want numbers which support their (and I’ll say our, because I supported the invasion and still support it) policies on Iraq — as well as not wanting a high number of untimely deaths among the civilian population.
But the number of people killed does not either prove the wisdom of the invasion, or prove that those who opposed it were right. It is an indicator that war is a bloody business, but such is only one factor in the decision to go to war. World War Ii, after all, was unimaginably bloodier, with perhaps fifty million people killed, but it was a war that had to be fought.
And the decision for this war is separate, at least in part, from the number of people who have been killed. It was a decision based on whether a particular regime posed a threat to its neighbors and our interests, whether that regime was an oppressor and murderer of its own people, whether that regime could be undone by either internal pressures or covert operations, and whether that regime was offensive enough that it should be deposed by force. Our intelligence was faulty on the weapons the Iraqi regime possessed, but on every other point, the decision for war was, and is, justified.
The Allies killed millions of Germans in World War II, a very significant number of them civilians, including children. We razed whole cities to the ground, we fire-bombed Dresden in an act of unspeakable barbarism — and all of it was necessary to win the war.
In Iraq, the vast majority of people killed were not killed by direct American action; most have been killed by the insurgents, by the forces which wish to destroy a nascent democracy and take authoritarian power for themselves and their groups.
Will we succeed in installing a lasting and stable democracy in Iraq? I don’t know, but it is certainly worth trying. But even if we fail in that, even if Iraq breaks up into three separate nations (which is what I, personally, would like to see anyway, even though that is not Bush Administration policy), and even if what we see as democracy is not maintained, deposing the Ba’ath Party regime was the right thing to do, even if the Lancet numbers are correct.
October 15th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Dana–
The UK and France declared war on Germany in response German aggression, so there’s no comparison here. If you want to justify the first war against Iraq on that basis, fine, but it doesn’t wash in this case.
Also, Iraq was not a threat to their neighbors. Not only did they not have a weapons of mass destruction program, but they had allowed weapons inspectors into the country so that we could be sure. They had nowhere near the conventional military that would have been required to threaten their neighbors. We destroyed their army in the 1st war, they had no air force to speak of, and 10 years of sanctions had ensured that their forces had not been rebuilt.
Also, the fact that most of the war’s victims were killed by insurgents does not relieve us of responsibility. The chaos was the predictable consequence of our actions.
Finally, your assertion that the invasion was the right thing to do, even if the Lancet numbers are correct can’t be justified. If the numbers are correct, then the war that we began has killed more Iraqis in 3 years than Hussein did in 30. Iraqis are now suffering more death and destruction on a scale that exceeds even the Iran-Iraq war. I don’t think that can be justified by a couple of platitudes about deposing a dictator, or bringing a yet-unrealized democracy.
October 15th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Actually, I think the weakest point about the WW2 comparison is that it fudges numbers. The scaling is done wrong, the comparison is of apples and oranges, and the assumption that no modern conflict can match WW2 strategic bombing is questionable.
October 16th, 2006 at 8:51 am
Iraq Body Count Press Release 16 October 2006
Reality checks: some responses to the latest Lancet estimates
Hamit Dardagan, John Sloboda, and Josh Dougherty
Summary:
(My emphasis added to demonstrate that this is not some right-wing hack job.)
From: Iraq Body Count
The whole rebuttal report in .pdf format.
October 16th, 2006 at 10:53 am
Fritz, IBC is hardly impartial when it comes to the Lancet. They’ve had disagreements in the past, dating at least as far back as the previous study. Although they’re not right-wing hacks, they have the same motives as right-wing hacks when it comes to talking about the Lancet study. More on this later, but for now I’ll just note that even the lower bound of the 95% confidence interval of the Lancet study, which accounts for the possibility of unrepresentative data, is an order of magnitude greater than the IBC estimate.
October 16th, 2006 at 11:32 am
How is IBC not impartial? They certainly disagree, but in what way are their criticisms unfounded? Alon, motivations aside, I’ve read through IBC’s “Reality checks: some responses to the latest Lancet estimates” by Dardagan, Sloboda, and Dougherty and “Speculation is no substitute: a defence of Iraq Body Count” by the same, and I have to ask: what part of IBC’s answer to Les Roberts is not persuasive?
For example, ILCS (IMIRA) uses a similar methodology to Les Roberts in Lancet. However, they interviewed a much larger number of households (22,000). They disagree with both IBC and Roberts. In reference to the previous Roberts study published by Lancet:
What of that? I think that you’re going to find that because of Lancet’s small sample size their data is suspect. A larger, more comprehensive study has already shown a picture that, while still troubling, is very, very different.
October 16th, 2006 at 11:33 am
The Lancet numbers and reality…
My friend Gordo, who very much disagrees with me on the war in Iraq, referenced the following story on his site:
Dozens Of Iraqis Killed in Reprisals
River Towns Trade Sectarian Strikes As Militias Move In
By Ellen Knickmeyer and Muhanned Saif Aldi…
October 16th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
Fritz–
Actually, Alon has always asserted that the 2004 study was useless, due to the large confidence interval. But this is a different survey, using a much larger sample. As Alon points out, the lower bound of the new study (392,000) carries a 95% confidence level.
In response, IBC defends its methodology with the results of a badly outdated study. The fact is, though, even IBC acknowledged at the beginning of the war that its count would be an undercount. To qualify for IBC, a death has to be reported by at least 2 of the 38 news sources approved by IBC. Most of these sources are western news agencies that draw mostly from the same pool of reporters. To qualify, a report must have been published in English.
So the IBC count was always going to be far short of the actual death toll. And I’m surprised to see IBC reporting that 24,000 is the most accurate figure available for the first year of fighting, while continuing to assert that 44,000 is even in the ballbark for 3 1/2 years of much heavier fighting.
Les Roberts’ reply to his critics made a lot of sense to me:
What I’d really like to hear from war supporters is the number of Iraqi deaths that they would consider to be justified. If more Iraqis are killed in this war than were killed by Hussein, is the war justified? If the total only comes to 100,000, is that justified?
But of course, we’ll hear no such number from that camp. That’s because there’s no end in sight for the violence, and they don’t want to be saying “stay the course” in 2008, when it’s become obvious that their maximum justifiable number has been exceeded.
Similarly, we won’t hear any estimates of the number of Iraqis who will be saved by our continued presence. There are dire predictions of the chaos that will ensue if we leave, as if there were not chaos already. So how many people do the war supporters think that we’re saving?
Again, we’ll get no answer, again because there is no respite in sight, and nobody wants to have to admit in 2008 or 2010 that we should have gotten out in 2006.
October 16th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
1. “Reality checks…” refers to the Lancet 2006. “Speculation…” explicitly refers to Lancet 2004, and was itself published in April 2006.
2. IBC writes:
3. Even if you reject IBC’s count, you still have to deal with the fact that ILCS, which uses a similar methodology to the Lancet study, but a far better pool of data, came up with a far different number.
4. From IBC (April 2006):
5. From IBC (April 2006):
Perhaps Alon can explain to us how a confidence interval works, the relative merit of confidence intervals, and whether confidence intervals really mean anything if you have other problems with your study (insufficiently randomized data, too small a data set, etc…)
ILCS, Lancet 2004, and Lancet 2006 were cross sectional cluster sample surveys. What’s incumbent upon Lancet 2006 is to show how if what they’re saying is true what IBC points out as problematic is either not problematic, not true, or consistent with Lancet 2006’s conclusions. I think that the problem with Lancet 2006 isn’t the math, it’s the data and the inappropriate choice of survey mechanism.
October 16th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
It has a vested interest in defending its own numbers. When you think that producing 40,000 dead civilians is bad enough, you don’t have any political interest in inflating the number; on the contrary, you might want to deflate any higher number. That will allow you to look moderate, without sacrificing your personal belief that the war was bad for humanitarian reasons (since you have a number you personally think is abhorrent enough).
I’m reading the ILCS now. I can’t find any reference to a death rate; the ICLS provides wonderful data if you’re interested in how many households in Iraq have washing machines and what the average workweek is, but nothing I can see that tells you how many Iraqis have died in the last 3 years.
October 16th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
Perhaps Alon can correct/comment on the following:
A confidence interval is a commentary on a certain sample of data. If that sample of data has problems, then the confidence interval also has problems. For the confidence interval to mean anything the data it is based upon must be sound.
From Statistics Glossary:
Bad data, insufficient randomization, or an unrepresentative samples equal a useless confidence interval.
October 16th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Alon,
Your psychological discussion regarding motivation is similar to the kinds of arguments gordo already listed as illegitimate.
October 16th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
I know. On its own, the fact that IBC has a vested interest in discrediting the Lancet doesn’t matter. The Lancet also has a vested interest in discrediting IBC. I brought that point up simply because you tried using the fact that IBC is anti-war for humanitarian reasons as a point in favor of the criticism.
October 16th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
I have some more on the ILCS and statistical testing. In a nutshell, assuming more data should be collected only falsifies a study if it’s within some margin of error. For example, the first Lancet study was like that, because IBC’s figure then lay within the margin of error, so the study couldn’t be said to contradict it. But the current study has a margin that’s far larger than the IBC estimate, so although it’s good to collect more data to narrow down the range of possible death tolls, the current data is sufficient to discredit IBC.
October 16th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
Fritz–
The press release refers to the ILCS 2004 report. It doesn’t matter when the press release was data, or which Lancet story the press release refers to. The ILCS data is outdated.
And while we’re listing the illegitimate errors already listed, I’ll point out that you’ve commited #6, the Holocaust denial error. You’ve said that the study can’t be accurate because it’s counted too many deaths. If it’s true that the study is wildly wrong, then you should be able to point to a flaw in the methodology.
Alon–
Thanks for the link.
October 17th, 2006 at 11:49 am
“Reality Checks…” begins:
It’s just odd that comparing the ILCS to either Lancet 2004 or Lancet 2006, controlling for relevant time periods, results in a conflict over the magnitude of excess mortality in Iraq, using essentially the same survey method, with ILCS having an advantage in terms of size and geographical distribution.
In any case, it’s probably not the methodology qua methodology that’s flawed. It’s the implementation of that methodology and the data gathered by the methodology in admirably difficult circumstances. Lancet is underplaying the difficulties in gathering accurate data from its survey method. The huge confidence interval is evidence enough of that.
By the way, IBC is a count. Like our census. A good survey is always better than even the best counts, given a large enough population. IBC’s count allows us to check the work of Lancet 2004 and 2006. IBC’s criticisms and questions are still interesting and need to be answered by Lancet’s authors.
As an example, early in modern public opinion research two things were determined: 1., people are ideologically innocent and know next to nothing about politics. 2., people, when they vote, tend to vote “correctly” or how we would imagine them to vote given a variety of other factors. (Bypass for now the normative implications of determining “correctly” which has an interesting and relevant literature all its own.) If even the best educated people are phenomenally ignorant of politics how do people vote “correctly” at a rate better than chance? Something was going on that wasn’t apparent from even the best public opinion surveys. A new way of looking at the problem, in addition to better data, was necessary. Thus the development of heuristic models, etc…
Now, to the current problem: How is it that the Iraqi medical establishment is active enough to be issuing death certificates but recording only less than a tenth of them? According to Lancet 2006, 500,000 death certificates were issued with very few of these being recorded. How is it that no one has noticed that whole areas of the country have been decimated of their male population (7% overall, and 10% in the worst hit areas) with no other independent verification? Why is it that huge numbers of people are grievously injured in bomb blasts but shockingly few of them seek medical treatment? If Lancet 2006 is correct then there are interesting answers to these questions. However, these questions and the inability of Lancet 2006 to answer them satisfactorily may be indications that there was a problem in the data that Lancet 2006 used to make its conclusions. Note that I say, “may indicate”.
Bringing up the problems with Lancet 2006 because they “feel” wrong given what we know (or think we know) or don’t jibe with other known facts is different than Holocaust denial. Holocaust denial is the disingenuous objection to apparent contradictions that have already been answered in the voluminous relevant literature. There was a moment in time where the question, “But what did they do with the bodies” or “How did they remove the gas from the chamber” were legitimate questions. It’s just that the question has been answered and that to continue to bring them up as objections despite the already extent answers is part of a purposeful attempt to cast doubt where no doubt need exist. We have the invoice for the gas proof doors and huge venting fans, we have the schematic of the design for instillation, and we have documentary evidence detailing the number of “processes” and surveys and interviews calling attention to points where the relevant euphemisms broke down. We’re are still at the position of asking, among other things, “Why is there such a huge distinction between death certificates issued and death certificates recorded?” Before we can fully accept Lancet 2006’s numbers, someone needs to answer this question and the others forwarded by IBC.
In addition, the survey mechanism needs to be improved or the circumstances in which the survey mechanism is used needs to be improved. There’s a bunch of literature floating around about excess mortality measures and surveys being done in Sudan using the cluster sample survey method. Because it is less politically fraught, the authors are much more open about the extreme difficulties one encounters when trying to do this kind of research in the middle of a war zone. They advise waiting until some period of relative peace and stability before any concrete conclusions should be reached. The kind of errors that can creep into the data through various problems with the sample, while acknowledged as existing by Lancet 2006, are more problematic than they acknowledge.
According to this month’s Atlantic, there may be close to 1 million refugees from the conflict within Iraq.
Bringing up that IBC agrees with Lancet 2006 politically is an informal fallacy that I used as a rhetorical tool to stave off automatic dismissal of its criticisms by those who are apt to dismiss arguments on ideological grounds (another informal fallacy).
October 17th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
I’ve already refuted that assertion, in the link I provided in comment 32. To reiterate, the ILCS only asked about war-related deaths, which could plausibly result in an undercount if people didn’t know who killed their relatives or didn’t consider e.g. being killed in a raid a war-related death.
No, IBC is a count, like checking media reports to see how many American women are raped every year. Nobody in IBC went around Iraq asking people if they knew anyone who’d been killed; there was one such count, done by the People’s Kifah, which concluded in July 2003 that the US and its allies alone had killed 37,000 civilians (counting militias as non-civilians).
October 17th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
Alon,
War related deaths question not similar to a question about deaths in a war? Sure. I don’t buy it even for a minute. In any case, would the presumed undercount have resulted in the magnitude in difference between the two reports?
People’s Kifah aka Iraqi Kaffi is probably a hoax. I would think you knew that, having read IBC’s criticisms. See IBC’s “Speculation…” Section 3.4.3, pg. 15, heading “Iraqi Kaffi/People’s Kifah”: no such study as described”.
October 17th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
Please read The Questionable Authority’s “The Iraq Study: How Good Was It?“
October 17th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
The Lancet people didn’t ask about deaths in a war, but about deaths. The ILCS doesn’t have any estimate of Iraq’s death rate; it asked people if anyone in their household had suffered a “war-related death.” That’s too vague and open to interpretation; although now it’s openly acknowledged that Iraq’s undergoing a civil war, it used to be very unclear. The best explanation for the discrepancy isn’t sampling bias; the 95% confidence limits take care of that. It’s that the people interpreted “war-related death” to mean “killed by the initial invasion, but not in the occupation.”
October 17th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
Alon,
That’s obtuse. You’re exaggerating the possibility of confusion. In any case, Lancet itself didn’t separate out combatent from non-combatent deaths (pg 2) for fear that people would lie. In some way their question might be less useful. Any worries that Lancet teams were doing 40 surveys a day? What were the limits of “family sensitivities?” I wonder how long their interviews took. Not a whole lot of time for open ended questions. In any case, Lancet admits that sometimes they had to confront families with a death certificate that gave a contradictory cause of death. I would think that because of the political situation the data compiled from these interviews is subject to some uncertainty.
If I was to do the study, and I had all the money in the world, and no worries about getting shot, I would ask both questions, perhaps separating them into an initial visit and then a follow-up.
October 17th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
I’m really not. When you have two studies that conflict, you can’t just conclude that one has sampling bias, not when their confidence intervals aren’t even close to overlapping.
The Lancet didn’t separate combatant from non-combatant deaths. That’s right. The only thing the Lancet reported is the death rate in Iraq before and after 3/2003, and the major causes of death after 3/2003. That’s ironclad; the remaining studies don’t look at death rates, but only ask restricted questions.
There were four interviewers, so at 10 interviews per day per interviewer, there was plenty of time to ask questions. It doesn’t take more than half an hour to get the information you need.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:32 am
I’m not concluding which one has sampling bias. I’m saying one or the other is closer to the truth. I tend to like surveys that have larger sample sizes with better distribution. However, I’m not willing to dismiss either with the evidence at hand. Thus, a new, better survey must be implemented.
Since their sample size and geographic distributions are very different, whether their confidence intervals overlap is really beside the point.
I would like to see something more come from this sentence:
Was each member of the team interviewing a household at a time, or was the team interviewing a household together? I don’t think that the study really says. Given the dangerous nature of the work, and the possible need for spotters, get-away drivers, etc…, I don’t think you can really make an assumption either way.
October 18th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
For the hundredth time, it doesn’t matter what the sample size is, as long as the means are sufficiently far apart.
Well, that’s better than the ILCS, which used cluster sampling data from 1997.
June 29th, 2007 at 11:15 am
60 Minutes-Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
05/12/1996 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.
June 29th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Dennis–
It’s certainly true that the Clinton/Blair policy was immoral. At the time of that interview, Albright was arguing against a proposal that Iraq be allowed to sell as much oil as necessary to buy food and medicine. That proposal was eventually adopted, and the CIA reported that the new policy eased the suffering and mortality inside Iraq considerably.
But the killing that Clinton did in eight years, Bush the Younger did in only three and a half. And it wasn’t a policy that Bush inherited, but one that he pushed hard to get authorized.