UK Government Document Confirms Lancet Report On Iraqi Death Toll

[Jcrowley]

Lying About The Dead

An extraordinary story appeared once this morning on BBC News 24, and then was buried.

The BBC World Service has obtained a document. It is an official appraisal by British government scientists across government departments, commissioned by 10 Downing Street, of the study published by the Lancet that estimated 655,000 dead in Iraq. The appraisal says that the methodology is correct and that the study "follows best practice".

Astonishingly, the official DFID verdict was that 655,000 dead is "If anything, an underestimate".

Yet the Government poured scorn on the Lancet study, despite having commissioned a report from their own scientists that said it was good. Who can doubt that if the government scientists had rubbished the study, the number ten spin machine would have publicised that like crazy?

<snip>

Personally, I did not know how much credence to give the study published in the Lancet, not being technically equipped to evaluate it. We can now be confident that the death toll in Iraq was over 600,000 a year ago, and probably over 700,000 now.

http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2007/03/lying_abouth_th.html

[npincus]

1. K & R

[ck4829]

2. K&R

[tk2kewl]

3. 4

[Botany]

4. the Lancet report was

Done by a highly skilled group.

"the study led by Gilbert Burnham of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland.
The Center for International Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology cooperated."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/11/iraq.deaths/

It was peer reviewed by 5 independent experts .... all of whom urged it to be published

Lancet is the British version of JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Associations)

Any criticism of the report must deal with the "real science" that was behind it.

"500 a day dead in Iraq." bush's legacy.

[endarkenment]

5. 655,000 - last year.

We are nearing the 1,000,000 mark. These numbers do not include the dead from the previous 12 years of sanctions. At what point do we start to understand that we are in a position similar to the citizens of Germany at the outset of WWII? Are we good Germans?

[Jcrowley]

6. Iraqi Death Toll: Why the UN Can't Count

Iraq War Death Toll Hits 'One Million'
Sunday March 18, 04:38 PM

The number of deaths in Iraq since the start of the conflict could be as high as one million, according to a new estimate. An Australian scientist published the figure using four sets of independent data, including information from the United Nations Children's Fund and the UN's population division, as well as medical literature.

Dr Gideon Polya's figure is far higher than the previous biggest estimate of 655,000.

"Using the most comprehensive and authoritative literature, and UN demographic data yields an estimate of one million post-invasion excess deaths in Iraq," he said.

A spokesman for the Stop The War Coalition said the figure was "astonishing".

He added: "Four years after the start of the conflict in Iraq we can now see what a disaster the war has been.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18032007/140/iraq-war-death-toll-hits-million.html

Iraqi Death Toll: Why the UN Can't Count
By Jon Wiener, TheNation.com. Posted January 17, 2007.

The UN has drastically underreported the number of Iraqis killed in 2006.

The new UN estimate of 34,000 Iraqis killed in 2006 made headlines around the world, but it's almost certainly far too low. The number, as the New York Times reported, was "the first attempt at hand-counting individual deaths for an entire year," and was based on information from "morgues, hospitals and municipal authorities across Iraq."

The first problem with the UN count is that refers only to civilians -- and thus almost certainly omitted deaths of Iraqi policemen, soldiers, insurgent fighters, and members of private militias like the Badr brigade. News media failed to report how the UN separated "civilian" casualties from the total, and the UN notably failed to report the total including non-civilians.

The second problem is the UN's methodology, which relied mostly on tallying official death certificates. The UN, according to the Times, argues their methodology is reliable because "a vast majority of Iraqi deaths are registered" with officials because Iraqis want to "prove inheritance and receive government compensation." But many bodies found in mass graves or ditches are unidentified. And there's another problem: according to the L.A. Times, "Victims' families are all too often reluctant to claim the bodies ... for fear of reprisals." And of course chaotic wartime conditions in several provinces make it difficult for officials there to issue death certificates even when victim's families do not fear reprisals.

None of the reports in leading newspapers mentioned the other count of Iraqi deaths: the Johns Hopkins study reported last October in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet. They estimated that 650,000 Iraqis had died as a result of the war -- 600,000 from violence and 50,000 from other war-related causes. President Bush rejected that figure -- "I don't consider it a credible report," he told a press conference last October -- and most of the media seem to have agreed.

http://www.alternet.org/story/46872/

[malaise]

17. Who will lock up these war criminals

I can't take much more of this.

[Jcrowley]

23. It's going to take

quite a bit of pressure from US grassroots. The international community is quite prepared.

Solidarity.

[WindRavenX]

10. Indeed

History is going to be very, very cruel to this country, and justifiably so. Whatever good this country had, it's long gone...

[sonias]

7. Horrible, truly horrible

My heart aches. What a incredible loss of life.
:cry:

Sonia

[Jonathan50]

8. Great catch,

[Robbien]

9. Wish we had a free media. People should know this.

The report appears to be having trouble seeing the light of day in the UK also.

[Jcrowley]

11. Burying the Lancet Report

This statement by Blair is particularly interesting because the Iraqi Health Ministry reports, whose accuracy he praised, have confirmed the Johns Hopkins team’s conclusion that aerial attacks by “coalition” forces are the leading cause of civilian deaths. One such report was cited by Nancy Youssef in the Miami Herald of September 25, 2004 under the headline “U.S. Attacks, Not Insurgents, Blamed for Most Iraqi Deaths.” The Health Ministry had been reporting civilian casualty figures based on reports from hospitals, as Blair said, but it was not until June 2004 that it began to differentiate between casualties inflicted by “coalition” forces and those from other causes. From June 10 to September 10 it counted 1,295 civilians killed by U.S. forces and their allies and 516 killed in “terrorist” operations. Health Ministry officials told Youssef that the “statistics captured only part of the death toll,” and emphasized that aerial bombardment was largely responsible for the higher numbers of deaths caused by the “coalition.” The breakdown (72 percent U.S.) is remarkably close to that attributed to aerial bombardment in the Lancet survey (79 percent).

BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson, in another Health Ministry report covering July 1, 2004 to January 1, 2005, cited 2,041 civilians killed by U.S. and allied forces versus 1,233 by “insurgents” (only 62 percent U.S.). Then something strange happened. The Iraqi Health Minister’s office contacted the BBC and claimed, in a convoluted and confusing statement, that their figures had somehow been misrepresented. The BBC issued a retraction and details of deaths caused by “coalition” forces have been notably absent from subsequent Health Ministry reports.

Official and media criticism of Roberts’s work has focused on the size of his sample, 988 homes in 33 clusters distributed throughout the country, but other epidemiologists reject the notion that this is controversial.

http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Feb2006/davies0206.html

[meldroc]

12. 655,000 dead is a LOW estimate. A million may already be dead.

I vaguely remember reading second-hand about an Australian study that used much of the same methods as the Lancet study, only more thorough, having four data sets or something. That one estimates that over a million (yes, 10^6) are dead because of the Iraq war.

Does anyone have linkage to that study?

[Jcrowley]

13. Here's a link

US Iraqi Holocaust And One Million Excess Deaths

By Dr Gideon Polya

07 February, 2007
Countercurrents.org

It is nearly the Fourth Anniversary of the illegal Anglo-American-Australian-Coalition invasion of Iraq. What has been the economic and human cost of Bush’s Iraq War?

In short, as of February 2007: (a) the accrual cost has been $2.3 TRILLION; (b) there are 3.7 million Iraqi refugees; (c) the post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) total 1.0 million (ONE MILLION); (d) post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.6 million; (e) there were 1.7 million excess Iraqi deaths associated with the Western-imposed 1990-2003 Sanctions War; (f) there were 1.2 million under-5 year old infant deaths in the 1990-2003 Sanctions War (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/12261/42/ ); and (g) Coalition deaths total about 3,360. These horrifying estimates from authoritative sources are amplified and documented below.

http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-polya070207.htm

Here's an interesting link regarding the Lancet Study:
http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/reliefresources/116066724942.htm

[in_cog_ni_to]

14. 700,000????!!!@#$#$%^&* OMG....

I am just sick.:cry:

[leftchick]

15. more likely a MILLION DEAD now

the 655,000 was a conservative estimate. what a great fucking country. :(

[Jcrowley]

16. See post 13

and examine this link:
http://mwcnews.net/content/view/12261/42

Spread the word.

[leftchick]

20. wow!

that is one excellent link . Thank you!

Much like Vietnam and most other wars, the human tally will be no where near accurate enough. :(

[Junkdrawer]

18. Mission Accomplished...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1503947

[kiteinthewind]

19. Let's un-bury this one! nt

:kick:

[LuckyLib]

21. I've been using this figure since the Lancet study came out,

and some folks act as if it was manufactured out of thin air. This needs to be broadcast everywhere! Six hundred thousand! And counting!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

22. Undoubtedly, all of them were "terrorists" involved in 9/11.

Fortunately, they are now faceless, nameless, statistics in our heroic fight to save 'Murka....from not having enough gas for our SUVs.

How dare those ingrates hate us after all we've done for them?

[EFerrari]

24. K&R. The Lancet is one of the most respected scientific publications.

Sadly so.

[lonestarnot]

25. I'm inclined to believe the accounts I have read that place the number over 1 million now.

[nam78_two]

26. For some reason I am getting an error when I try to recommend

Here is a kick :kick:

[nam78_two]

27. Recommends still buggy

:kick:

[liberalla]

28. recs still giving error

:kick:

[OneBlueSky]

29. 655.000 murders . . . sounds like a crime to me . . . n/t

.

[Raksha]

30. Soon people will be talking about "the Iraq Holocaust"

in reference to this war--if they aren't already. This is America?

I'm going to answer my own question: This WAS America!

[Jcrowley]

31. kick

[Jcrowley]

32. Silencing the Children of Iraq

Silencing the Children of Iraq


“whole lot of signing never gonna be heard, disappearing every day without so much as a word” - Patty Griffin, sung by the Dixie Chicks in “Top of the World”.


In this post, I am at least going to acknowledge that the voices and songs of the Iraqi children are disappearing in the tsunami of violence that our invasion and occupation has unleashed upon them – the truly innocent among us.


This is a link to a short video of some of the appalling conditions some children in Baghdad are facing now. It starts by showing a young boy with beautiful hazel eyes singing a song that has this line in it: “I slipped from your hands as I said farewell”. He explains that he was walking with his parents when he saw them explode. He is one of many children in this orphanage, and all of them know about death and loss, probably better than most readers of this post.


Some of them have also suffered horrible wounds from violent attacks. There is only one man running the orphanage now – the other man running the orphanage was killed by a death squad. Also, the orphanage is running out of funds and may soon close.


Another scene in this video is a young mother bringing her son to the doctor. She claims the boy has not acted normally since the car bomb. Both she and the doctor seem to think it is due to PTSD, although the child has obvious scars on his head. The video then discusses the threat of kidnapping that the children face. The final scene is a young girl crying as she listens to a singer sing of a better tomorrow. She is an orphan too.

http://newsaboutiraq.blogspot.com/2007/03/silencing-children-of-iraq-whole-lot-of.html