The WaPo is reporting this. Keep in mind this was a study done in survey form!
Tim Blair had the best roundup with this:
The Associated Press reports:
“They’re almost certainly way too high,” said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. He criticized the way the estimate was derived and noted that the results were released shortly before the Nov. 7 election.
“This is not analysis, this is politics,” Cordesman said.
Robert Blendon, director of the Harvard Program on Public Opinion and Health and Social Policy, said interviewing urban dwellers chosen at random was “the best of what you can expect in a war zone.”
But he said the number of deaths in the families interviewed ” 547 in the post-invasion period versus 82 in a similar period before the invasion ” was too few to extrapolate up to more than 600,000 deaths across the country.
Donald Berry, chairman of biostatistics at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, was even more troubled by the study, which he said had “a tone of accuracy that’s just inappropriate.”
UPDATE II. Professor Peter von Nostrand:
It is as clear as a summer day what happens next: As they did before with the Lancet Report to their utter discredit, the right will deride this research as liberal propaganda and drive it out of public debate faster than you can say “Dan Rather.” Yet it isn’t liberal propaganda.
Glad that’s settled. The Wall Street Journal reports:
Hamit Dardagan, co-founder of Iraq Body Count, a London-based human-rights group, called the Lancet study’s figures “pretty shockingly high.” His group tabulates the civilian death toll based on media reports augmented by local hospital and morgue records. His group says it has accumulated reports of as many as 48,693 civilian deaths caused by the U.S. intervention.
Please, let’s cut the B.S. for a while:
George W. Bush and his mafia members and everyone who voted for them is a part of this ugly crime committed against the innocent people of Iraq..
So, well done, to you all and your ‘murderer.’
This reminds me of the guestimate by Johns Hopkins Unviersity study a while back that claimed 100,000 was the number. The methodologies used were proven to be inaccurate and it appears that used similar methodologies.
2- Funny you should say that as JH is involved in this study! I mean come on! This just makes them look silly!
3.
Indeed- this was an update of said project. I agree with Cordesman when he said `This is not analysis, this is politics,’
Like the previous study, it uses the same flawed methodologies. Also like the previous study, it happens to released just before an election.
so 100.000 is OK? Good for you.. I might wanna steal your brains sometimes..
I see Sphincter has posted his most provocative troll yet (post #1). There’s no point in arguing with an ingoranus.
6. Are you mad, dear Robert?
I am thinking about giving you an original nickname since obviously, this what the neocons do…
I’ll get to that later, I have some more neocons to piss off.:razz:
5.
I don’t recall saying that. Care to quote where I did?
What I said is that both of these conclusions are flawed in their methodologies. Even the NYT’s article contains a comment on this:
Robert Blendon, director of the Harvard Program on Public Opinion and Health and Social Policy, said interviewing urban dwellers chosen at random was “the best of what you can expect in a war zone.â€
But he said the number of deaths in the families interviewed ” 547 in the post-invasion period versus 82 in a similar period before the invasion ” was too few to extrapolate up to more than 600,000 deaths across the country.
Donald Berry, chairman of biostatistics at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, was even more troubled by the study, which he said had “a tone of accuracy that’s just inappropriate.“
Any questions, Knipple?
A rational take on the issue:
A controversial new study estimates the number of civilian casualties in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003 to be as high as 600,000. Other estimates put the civilian body count at less than 50,000.
But, like debating how many angels might dance on the point of a pit, debating death counts obscures the fundamental issue. It wasn’t necessary for any Iraqis to die — be it one or 100,000 — as the result of a U.S. invasion and occupation of their country.
The primary rationale given for the war — that Iraq’s stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction combined with its connections to terrorist organizations to pose a clear and present danger to America — was false. Had the Bush administration continued to rely on U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq, instead of rushing to war, the same realization would have been reached, but without tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths or the deaths of nearly 3,000 American soldiers.
It’s of little use to debate just how many tens of thousands of Iraqis have perished as a result of the U.S. invasion, occupation and ensuing sectarian violence and civil war when none need have died.
Yes, Iraqis had died by the thousands under Saddam Hussein’s cruel regime, but the globe is dotted with brutal regimes whose routine killings are not answered by U.S. invasions. Were that the measure, the United States would have 130,000 troops in Darfur.
There is sorrow enough in the most conservative of Iraqi body counts
No one knows how many “innocent” Iraqis have died. The real question is what can we do to restore order and stop the deaths?
I find it interesting that there hasn’t been a post here about Iraq or Afghanistan since this one. (Oct-19-2006)
did you check here, here or here?