🚀 go-pugleaf

On 2007-06-28 07:40:36 -0400, Mike Smith <mws@wt.net> said:

> On Thu, 28 Jun 2007 02:11:33 GMT, CJT <abujlehc@prodigy.net> wrote:
> 
>> Mike Smith wrote:
>> 
>>> On Wed, 27 Jun 2007 22:33:44 GMT, leroyblue@pillinor.net wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On Tue, 26 Jun 2007 01:27:42 -0500, David Agnew
>>>> <DavidAgnew@nospam.nul> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> LOL
>>>>> 
>>>>> Posted on Tue, Jun. 26, 2007
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> GOP Senator Says Iraq Plan Not Working
>>>>> 
>>>>> ANNE FLAHERTY The Associated Press
>>>> 
>>>> The Senator is up for re-election and is playing politics. THE
>>>> ASSOCITED PRESS! You have got to be kidding. There isn't a more
>>>> anti-American propaganda machine in existence.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Yes there is...
>>> 
>>> Reuters.
>>> 
>>> Mike Smith
>> 
>> In other words, in the eyes of Republicans, the truth hurts.
> 
> Whatever feeds your fantasies, dude...


Study Claims Iraq's 'Excess' Death Toll Has Reached 655,000
By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 11, 2006; A12
A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 
more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 
2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.
The estimate, produced by interviewing residents during a random 
sampling of households throughout the country, is far higher than ones 
produced by other groups, including Iraq's government.
It is more than 20 times the estimate of 30,000 civilian deaths that 
President Bush gave in a speech in December. It is more than 10 times 
the estimate of roughly 50,000 civilian deaths made by the 
British-based Iraq Body Count research group.
The surveyors said they found a steady increase in mortality since the 
invasion, with a steeper rise in the last year that appears to reflect 
a worsening of violence as reported by the U.S. military, the news 
media and civilian groups. In the year ending in June, the team 
calculated Iraq's mortality rate to be roughly four times what it was 
the year before the war.
Of the total 655,000 estimated "excess deaths," 601,000 resulted from 
violence and the rest from disease and other causes, according to the 
study. This is about 500 unexpected violent deaths per day throughout 
the country.
The survey was done by Iraqi physicians and overseen by epidemiologists 
at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. The 
findings are being published online today by the British medical 
journal the Lancet.
The same group in 2004 published an estimate of roughly 100,000 deaths 
in the first 18 months after the invasion. That figure was much higher 
than expected, and was controversial. The new study estimates that 
about 500,000 more Iraqis, both civilian and military, have died since 
then -- a finding likely to be equally controversial.
Both this and the earlier study are the only ones to estimate mortality 
in Iraq using scientific methods. The technique, called "cluster 
sampling," is used to estimate mortality in famines and after natural 
disasters.
While acknowledging that the estimate is large, the researchers believe 
it is sound for numerous reasons. The recent survey got the same 
estimate for immediate post-invasion deaths as the early survey, which 
gives the researchers confidence in the methods. The great majority of 
deaths were also substantiated by death certificates.
"We're very confident with the results," said Gilbert Burnham, a Johns 
Hopkins physician and epidemiologist.
A Defense Department spokesman did not comment directly on the estimate.
"The Department of Defense always regrets the loss of any innocent life 
in Iraq or anywhere else," said Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros. "The 
coalition takes enormous precautions to prevent civilian deaths and 
injuries."
He added that "it would be difficult for the U.S. to precisely 
determine the number of civilian deaths in Iraq as a result of 
insurgent activity. The Iraqi Ministry of Health would be in a better 
position, with all of its records, to provide more accurate information 
on deaths in Iraq."
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."
This viewed was echoed by Sarah Leah Whitson, an official of Human 
Rights Watch in New York, who said, "We have no reason to question the 
findings or the accuracy" of the survey.
"I expect that people will be surprised by these figures," she said. "I 
think it is very important that, rather than questioning them, people 
realize there is very, very little reliable data coming out of Iraq."
The survey was conducted between May 20 and July 10 by eight Iraqi 
physicians organized through Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. They 
visited 1,849 randomly selected households that had an average of seven 
members each. One person in each household was asked about deaths in 
the 14 months before the invasion and in the period after.
The interviewers asked for death certificates 87 percent of the time; 
when they did, more than 90 percent of households produced certificates.
According to the survey results, Iraq's mortality rate in the year 
before the invasion was 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people; in the 
post-invasion period it was 13.3 deaths per 1,000 people per year. The 
difference between these rates was used to calculate "excess deaths."
Of the 629 deaths reported, 87 percent occurred after the invasion. A 
little more than 75 percent of the dead were men, with a greater male 
preponderance after the invasion. For violent post-invasion deaths, the 
male-to-female ratio was 10-to-1, with most victims between 15 and 44 
years old.
Gunshot wounds caused 56 percent of violent deaths, with car bombs and 
other explosions causing 14 percent, according to the survey results. 
Of the violent deaths that occurred after the invasion, 31 percent were 
caused by coalition forces or airstrikes, the respondents said.
Burnham said that the estimate of Iraq's pre-invasion death rate -- 5.5 
deaths per 1,000 people -- found in both of the Hopkins surveys was 
roughly the same estimate used by the CIA and the U.S. Census Bureau. 
He said he believes that attests to the accuracy of his team's results.
He thinks further evidence of the survey's robustness is that the 
steepness of the upward trend it found in excess deaths in the last two 
years is roughly the same tendency found by other groups -- even though 
the actual numbers differ greatly.
An independent group of researchers and biostatisticians based in 
England produces the Iraq Body Count. It estimates that there have been 
44,000 to 49,000 civilian deaths since the invasion. An Iraqi 
nongovernmental organization estimated 128,000 deaths between the 
invasion and July 2005.
The survey cost about $50,000 and was paid for by Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology's Center for International Studies.
Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.

-- 
"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in 
England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after 
all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it 
is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a 
democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist 
dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to 
the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL 
THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of 
patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY 
COUNTRY."
 
--Goering at the Nuremberg Trials