Iraqi casualties may total 600,000

October 11, 2006

If accurate, this is simply stunning.

A team of American and Iraqi public health researchers has estimated that 600,000 civilians have died in violence across Iraq since the 2003 American invasion, the highest estimate ever for the toll of the war here.

The figure breaks down to about 15,000 violent deaths a month, a number that is quadruple the one for July given by Iraqi government hospitals and the morgue in Baghdad and published last month in a United Nations report in Iraq. That month was the highest for Iraqi civilian deaths since the American invasion.

But it is an estimate and not a precise count, and researchers acknowledged a margin of error that ranged from 426,369 to 793,663 deaths.

At the risk of sounding flippant, that’s a pretty huge margin of error isn’t it? Indeed, concerns about statistical reliability are fairly strong. These are the same Johns Hopkins researchers who caused a stir, to put it mildly, with their 2004 estimates about civilian causalities, and this new report is based on a similar statistical model. “Caveat emptor” comes to mind.

This is not to say, however, that the report should be completely disregarded, only that its results are based on a questionable methodology.

If the 600,000 number is wrong, what’s right? And how about civilians with serious injuries, who obviously don’t count as casualties? And even if the Johns Hopkins report is off by quite a bit, can we finally stop hearing the far-right myth about Iraq being safer for civilians than Washington, DC?

Steve,

“At the risk of sounding flippant, that’s a pretty huge margin of error isn’t it?”

Not from where I sit. Assuming the worst, they’re still projecting 426,000 killed. Does it really matter what the top end is? Would it matter if they were only projecting a low of 300,000?

http://thepremise.com/archives/10/11/2006/352

Imagine instead that they relased the study another way, by talking about the minimums. “We have concluded that at least 426,000 Iraqis have been killed since the beginning of hostilities in Iraq.” Would we be concerned about the margin of error then?

  • A report I heard this morning on the BBC says that this study confirms the 2004 study, and that it’s the same method they use to estimate deaths after tidal waves (to cite a recent example). The doctors involved in the research were shown death certificates for over 90% of the deaths reported, and they sampled 40 households in 50 different areas.

  • This is what I want to know: how does 600,000 + deaths (or any quantity that has been estimated – obviously there’s controversy) over the course of Operation Iraqi “Freedom” compare to Saddam’s killing of his own people in the same amount of time? Anyone want to bet that we win, big time?

    We are becoming the kind of people we used to destroy.

  • BTW, don’t use “casualties” to mean “deaths.” There’s a difference; casualties include dead, wounded, and missing. Casualties among the Iraqis must run in the 2-4 million range.

  • To steal a line from Sarah Silverman, the difference between 426,369 deaths and 793,663 deaths is that 793,663 deaths is unforgivable.

    Seriously, one day of the Baghdad-like violence would overwhelm DC’s emergency care abilities. One week of putting the DC airports under the same restrictions that the Baghdad airport is under would shut the town down.

    It would be interesting, since California and Iraq are about the same size to compare what a day in Iraq would do to a nice day in California.

  • What I thought I typed but apparantly didn’t:

    They are by definition, casualties, they just aren’t deaths

  • Or in short, half a million Iraqis have died because of our war on their country.

    Feeling liberated now?

  • How many times have we heard W bang the drum that “terrorists have no regard for innocent lives” and “they want to kill us”? I’m not saying all 600K were killed by American bullets. Obviously that’s not the case. But the reality is that a tiny group of individuals in the US started a war of choice with no regard for the outcome. And part of that outcome has been an undeniably enormous number of Iraqi casualties.

    Even the low end of the count is more than were killed in the Indian Ocean Tsunami of December 2004. And a hundred times more than were killed on September 11, 2001. And if the 600K is close to correct, that’s as many people as were killed in the American Civil War.

  • While we can quibble about the exact number of deaths related to this conflict, as if that number could ever be known, Rudy Giuliani’s quote from ground zero will have to suffice about the human loss in this conflict, “The number of casualties will be more than most of us can bear.”

    The Iraqis have suffered an excruciating burden because of this war, a burden most Americans couldn’t even fathom in its awfullness. But worse, the price they have paid, and will continue to pay will amount to what? Will they truly be free? Will a lasting peace come from this? Will the future be prosperous and worry-free? It’s the politicians who will reap the rewards of the face-saving decisions, the carving up of a nation or the new mantle of powers assumed. It’s a shame that so many have died so that a few neocon egos could live.

  • “This is not to say, however, that the report should be completely disregarded, only that its results are based on a questionable methodology.”

    Has anyone seen a copy of the Lancet article? As someone who works with statistics as part of my job, I’m curious about the charges of a “questionable methodology.” I read in the link to the Times article that 1,849 households across 47 neighborhoods were included in the study. There is no mention of the type of sampling of household within those 47 neighborhoods (which were not randomly sampled I assume). Using households to gather respondents is a challenge to the random sampling that would make this report more credible.

    This methodological debate, however, needs to not overshadow the actual premise. In general, I tend think Daniel Davies critique of the critiques of the original study are worth considering. At one point, he writes, “A curious basis for a humanitarian intervention; “we must invade, because Saddam is killing thousands of his citizens every year, and we will kill only 8,000 more.” http://crookedtimber.org/2004/11/01/talking-rubbish-about-epidemiology

  • As always, Shakespeare said it well:

    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath
    a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and
    arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join
    together at the latter day and cry all ‘We died at
    such a place;’ some swearing, some crying for a
    surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind
    them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their
    children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die
    well that die in a battle; for how can they
    charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their
    argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it
    will be a black matter for the king that led them to
    it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of
    subjection.

  • I heard two things about this today.

    First, an NPR pirece about how this was the only examination of this issues undertaken with a scientific approach. These deaths are substantiated by death certificates and other documentation. This is the same type of process used to estimate deaths by natural disaster. Regardless of the actual number or the MOE the approach is sound and the results are unfortunate.

    Second, the POTUS heald a press conference today. A reporter asked about this study and W replied that it has no value and these people are simply guessing at the number. Oh, and he does not know how many have died but he knows its “hard work to die.”

    How typical! In the face of a scientific study W decides the report is totally made up and bogus. Maybe tonight as he kneels beside his seperate twin bed in the WH and says his prayers it will go something like this…

    “Bless Mommy and Daddy”,
    “Bless the twins and please make sure they get home from the bar safely”,
    “Bless Rummy and Gonzo”,
    AND “Bless Barney!”

    “Amen”

    “P.S. How many Iraqi civilians have I killed in the war on global islamofacism?”

    “Amen.”

  • that’s a pretty huge margin of error isn’t it

    No, it’s not. Studies of this kind necessarily have a small sample size – to minimize the risk to researchers – and therefore a wide confidence interval. But even so, the chances that the real number lies at either end of the spectrum are exceedingly small.

    Think of it this way: we now know with 97.5% certainty that more than 426,369 Iraqis have died because of the war.

  • There has not been any valid criticism of the earlier study showing 100,000 deaths except for the standard, “the sample size was too small”. They increased the sample size in this study, not that it will stop the same criticism. This same cluster sample method is the best that has ever been developed and a similar study related to Darfur is being cited on the state dept’s website. The article is also freely available now. There is no good reason to be skeptical of the estimate. It is the best we can do and far better than reports based on the media or morgues. Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly and Glenn Greenwald have good info on this.

  • Susan… I’ve been thinking about that Henry V speech a lot lately.

    chrenson: ” I’m not saying all 600K were killed by American bullets.”

    According to the study, approximately 200,000 excess deaths were blamed, by those surveyed, on US and allied action.

    Let’s say the figure is wildly off the mark by a factor of 10. If so, then the good guys are only responsible for 20,000 deaths. Say, six 9/11s.

    I do wonder what the definition of “civlian” is. I assume it excludes military casualties. Possibly police. Does it include non-uniformed combatants who might’ve legitimately had it coming to them? The only way for this not to be a “black matter for the king” is to hope that those killed by us were all bad guys.

  • Hmmm…

    Osama wages war on the United States, resulting in 3,000 people being killed, and is branded a terrorists.

    Georgie wages war on Iraq, resulting in 600,000 people being killed, and is branded—not at all?

    There is not enough kool-aid on the planet to make me understand the parity of this equation Ten thousand Roves, accompanied by endless thousands of Coultergeists (Coultergeese?), Hannitys’ O’Reillys, Limbaughs, DeLays, Cheneys, and other bipedal meatloafs, coud not make me understand why bin Laden is a terrorist, Hussein is a war criminal, and Herr Bush is still free to walk amongst decent human beings.

    Drag this pathetic excuse for a president from “OUR” White House, try him as the war criminal and mass murderer that he is—and then have him hanged by the neck until dead—right outside the front door of the Pentagon….

  • It might not be a bad idea to check out http://www.mahablog.com/2006/10/11/adding-up-the-commas/ for a little plain person’s insight into the evaluation of this and the previous study. In general, I trust the press to state that a study exists and to state some of the more impressive looking numbers in a study, but I don’t trust the press’ evaluation of the statistical methods applied in a study. The repeated invocation of small sample size or of the size of a confidence interval as somehow invalidating a study indicates a pretty shallow understanding of statistical techniques.

  • Now that I’m over the initial horror, I’m starting to wonder if there’s a way everybody can be right — that there are 600,000 “excess” deaths since the invasion. The new study covers everybody; perhaps earlier claims of lower figures omitted large categories like police and bad guys.

    I’d have more confidence in this explanation if those who desperately wanted to minimize the study had been able to offer it immediately, given how reasonable it sounds. Instead, we hear about “methodology” and how much violence Iraqis can tolerate.

  • Er, the formatting messed up my notation. That should read “that there are -less than- 100,00 civilian deaths yet still -more than- 600,000 “excess deaths.”

  • I still want to know how this compares to Saddam’s rate of “excess deaths.” If someone found this out and published it, it might very well end this stupd ass war right now, because I’m guessing Saddam didn’t get through more than a couple thousand a year (with the exception of the hideous Iran-Iraq war years). Horrible, yes, Dubya territory, no.

    Grumpy, I’d love to see someone do a production of Henry V with the title roll played by a strutting asshole with a Texas accent. Talk about timely…

  • Susan, post Gulf War Saddam was responsible for over 100,000 Iraqi deaths in one year alone.

    Certainly in recent years (maybe 1996 through 2001) the “excess death rate” from Baathist oppression in Iraq was less than what Iraq is seeing now. In fact the total from the Iraqi War and it’s aftermath may soon exceed Saddam’s total. The big difference is that Saddam was responsible for every excess death in Iraq before the Iraqi War, and we are responsible for…

    … rather depends on how you calculate it, doesn’t it. How can we be responsible for deaths inflicted by the Sunnis on the Shites and deaths inflicted by the Shites on the Sunnis?

    Are we the only moral actors in Iraq, or are there others to blame?

  • Susan: I’d love to see someone do a production of Henry V with the title roll played by a strutting asshole with a Texas accent.

    I think adaptations of the Henry IV plays would be better, with a callow Texan in the role of Prince Hal.

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