Study of Iraqi Dead Shocking, But Sound Science

[Xiahou]

*sigh*

When we hashed through this hogwash last time people (myself included) had posted links to various criticisms of the study that showed it to be statistically unsound. The numbers shown in the study were totally out of line with even the highest figures given by any other study.

You don't have to look far, even the anti-war iraqbodycount.net has a press release out the criticizes the new figures as outlandish.

A new study has been released by the Lancet medical journal estimating over 650,000 excess deaths in Iraq. The Iraqi mortality estimates published in the Lancet in October 2006 imply, among other things, that:

1. On average, a thousand Iraqis have been violently killed every single day in the first half of 2006, with less than a tenth of them being noticed by any public surveillance mechanisms;
2. Some 800,000 or more Iraqis suffered blast wounds and other serious conflict-related injuries in the past two years, but less than a tenth of them received any kind of hospital treatment;
3. Over 7% of the entire adult male population of Iraq has already been killed in violence, with no less than 10% in the worst affected areas covering most of central Iraq;
4. Half a million death certificates were received by families which were never officially recorded as having been issued;
5. The Coalition has killed far more Iraqis in the last year than in earlier years containing the initial massive "Shock and Awe" invasion and the major assaults on Falluja.

If these assertions are true, they further imply:

* incompetence and/or fraud on a truly massive scale by Iraqi officials in hospitals and ministries, on a local, regional and national level, perfectly coordinated from the moment the occupation began;
* bizarre and self-destructive behaviour on the part of all but a small minority of 800,000 injured, mostly non-combatant, Iraqis;
* the utter failure of local or external agencies to notice and respond to a decimation of the adult male population in key urban areas;
* an abject failure of the media, Iraqi as well as international, to observe that Coalition-caused events of the scale they reported during the three-week invasion in 2003 have been occurring every month for over a year.

In the light of such extreme and improbable implications, a rational alternative conclusion to be considered is that the authors have drawn conclusions from unrepresentative data. In addition, totals of the magnitude generated by this study are unnecessary to brand the invasion and occupation of Iraq a human and strategic tragedy.

The numbers of deaths in any other study I know of don't even approach 1/10th of what the this "study" is claiming, yet you think we should take this one that's based on unreliable survey data instead of the ongoing counts that have tracked actual records. This study doesnt even pass the common sense test as indicated by the above quotes and it flies completely in the face of every single tangible figure we have on the issue... go ahead and try to find another credible study anywhere that even comes close to approaching the figure of 650,000.

I wouldnt use this study to wrap fish in...