Bush supporters' aftermath thread

It's common knowledge that the lancet survey is completely flawed in the methods they used to create their numbers. That's why they are the ONLY source of such exagerrated numbers.

McG, The only reason those numbers are available is because Lancet is the only one to take the trouble to arrive at their best estimates. The US government doesn't do innocent Iraqis killed counts. Who do you think has more interest in the truth? Lancet or the US government?

As I said, It's common knowledge that the lancet survey is completely flawed in the methods they used to create their numbers.

If they're flawed, how so? Were you ever on the ground in Iraq during this war?

No, were you?

Even more disturbing are those who don't post their links and put out grossly exaggerated numbers as fact.

BBC apologises for misinterpreting Iraqi death stats
Reuters ^ | 1/29/05
LONDON, Jan 29 (Reuters) - The BBC apologised on Saturday for erroneously reporting that U.S.-led and Iraqi forces may be responsible for the deaths of 60 percent of Iraqi civilians killed in conflict over the last six months.
The British broadcaster said on Friday in broadcasts and a news statement that its Panorama investigative show would air a report on Sunday citing "confidential" records from Iraq's health ministry to support the contention.

Iraq's health minister said the BBC misinterpreted the statistics it had received and had ignored statements from the ministry clarifying the figures.

"Today, the Iraqi Ministry of Health has issued a statement clarifying matters that were the subject of several conversations with the BBC before the report was published, and denying that this conclusion can be drawn from the figures relating to 'military operations'," the BBC said in a news statement on Saturday.

"The BBC regrets mistakes in its published and broadcast reports yesterday."

A BBC spokesman said the statistics would not feature in the Panorama show on Sunday
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1331509/posts

The good news from Iraq is not fit to print
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | November 2, 2005

WHAT WAS the most important news out of Iraq last week?

That depends on what you consider ''important." Do you see the war against radical Islam and Ba'athist fascism as the most urgent conflict of our time? Do you believe that replacing tyranny with democratic self-government is ultimately the only antidote to the poison that has made the Middle East so dangerous and violent? If so, you'll have no trouble identifying the most significant development in Iraq last week: the landslide victory of the new Iraqi Constitution.

The announcement on Oct. 25 that the first genuinely democratic national charter in Arab history had been approved by 79 percent of Iraqis was a major piece of good news. It confirmed the courage of Iraq's people and their hunger for freedom and decent governance. It advanced the US campaign to democratize a country that for 25 years had been misruled by a mass-murdering sociopath. It underscored the decision by Iraq's Sunnis, who had boycotted the parliamentary elections in January, to pursue their goals through ballots, not bullets. And it dealt a humiliating blow to the bombers and beheaders -- to the likes of Islamist butcher Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who earlier this year declared ''a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy" and threatened to kill anyone who took part in the elections.
More HERE

The Lancet study says: "we estimate there were 98,000 extra deaths (95% CI 8000-194000) during the post-war period". As Fred Kaplan points out in his critique of the survey in 'Slate', the bracketed bit "(95% CI 8000-194000)" is not explained by Lancet but actually means that the study's authors are 95% confident that the war-caused deaths are somewhere between 8,000 and 194,000. Kaplan rightly says: "This isn't an estimate. It's a dart board". So, there is a huge level of uncertainty in the Lancet's finding.

The method used was to interview households - 988 in all - and ask them about deaths before and after the invasion. Corroboration was not sought in most cases - indeed only in 78 households were death certificates requested. Only 63 households actually provided them.

The main problem relates to 'cluster sampling'. Several 'clusters' (sample areas) fell within the Sunni triangle. Figures are exaggerated when the distribution of deaths is skewed.

Another methodological flaw, not covered by Kaplan, relates to the fact that, in comparing pre- and post-invasion data, the Lancet study did not adjust figures to account for migratory movement.

In light of recent discussion about what it means to be on the Left, I think it worth adding that it includes questioning of official and seemingly authoritative sources.

Here's a link to the Kaplan article, which appeared in 'Slate': http://slate.msn.com/id/2108887/fr/rss/#ContinueArticle This link also leads to the Lancet study.

The anti-war leaders have used the very flawed Lancet survey in two dishonest ways: firstly, to suggest it is authoritative and, secondly, to suggest that the (flawed figure of) 100,000 casualties are wholly the result of the US invasion.

The death toll in this war has been caused by both sides - one side wishing to restore Ba'athism (Arab fascism) , the other seeking to bury it once and for all through the establishment of a democratic, federal, system of governance based on a constitution that guarantees minority rights.

In such a situation, I blame the 'resistance' of the former for any loss of life.

The 'Iraq Body Count' group offers a more reliable methodology for ascertaining the toll in Iraq. Have a look at the site: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/



link

"...conducted by a survey team from Johns Hopkins University, claim that about 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the war."

I don't know about you people, but I usually have pretty high confidence in what John Hopkins University says.

If they made a mistake, then shame on me for trusting them with high confidence.

It appears you are willing to turn a blind eye to the many mistakes and errors involved in the conduct of the survey, simply because you like the name "Johns Hopkins." (Well, that and because you are virulently against the war, of course.)

And he is perfectly willing to discount any reputable analysis of the study which so far NOBODY has held up as factual except uninformed bloggers.

Here's one more showing WHY the study was so flawed:

Counting Iraqi War Casualties
S. Robert Lichter
How reliable is a new study claiming 100,000 deaths from the U.S. invasion?

A controversial new study claims that the invasion of Iraq was responsible for far more deaths than heretofore recognized. The study was released ahead of schedule, in the final days of the American presidential campaign, by The Lancet, a British medical journal. Media accounts have focused on the researchers' conclusions that:

- "the death toll associated with the invasion and occupation of Iraq is probably about 100,000 people, and may be much higher"

- "violence accounted for most of the excess deaths, and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths"

- "the risk of death from violence ... was 58 times higher" after the invasion than it was before.

Does the study warrant the attention it is receiving? More importantly, do the findings warrant the authors' conclusion that their results "demand a re-evaluation of the consequences of weaponry now used by coalition forces..." not to mention the Lancet's editor's broader conclusion that, "Democratic imperialism has led to more deaths, not fewer"?

To be sure, the researchers showed ingenuity and courage in collecting public health information in Iraq at a time of great violence and social disruption. Their use of survey methods is largely impeccable given the limitations under which they had to work. Unfortunately, they are on shakier ground when they use their sample results to estimate the number of deaths and increased risk of violent death associated with the invasion and occupation.

Their method was to estimate the death rate before and after the invasion and compare the results. To do this they surveyed 988 households in 33 randomly selected neighborhoods (or "clusters"), asking residents about any deaths since January 1, 2002. Then they tabulated the number of deaths reported prior to the invasion on March 19, 2003, and compared the total to the number of deaths reported after that date. (They added a statistical correction factor to take into account the greater length of the post-invasion period.)

Some limitations of this method are unavoidable. First, the researchers assume that people were able to accurately recall information about the timings of deaths over the past three years. Second, the "cluster sampling" method made necessary by the continuing unrest in Iraq increased the chance of selecting unrepresentative neighborhoods that skewed the findings. This may have happened in the Falluja cluster, which represented 3 percent of the sample but accounted for 71 percent of all post-attack violent deaths. The researchers recognized this problem and excluded "this extreme statistical outlier" from their calculation of excess deaths.

More important was the way the researchers chose to determine whether reported deaths were associated with the war and occupation. They used the pre-invasion death rate as a baseline and assigned responsibility to the conflict for any increase in deaths from all causes after that date: "we estimated the death toll associated with the conflict by subtracting pre-invasion mortality from post-invasion mortality and multiplying that rate by the estimated population of Iraq....") From this they concluded, "the mortality rate was higher across the Iraq after the war than before, even excluding Falluja. We estimate that there were 98,000 extra deaths... during the postwar period."(Notwithstanding their wording "after the war" and "postwar," these figures included deaths that occurred during the invasion.) The margin of sampling error surrounding this estimate is quite large, ranging from 8,000 to 194,000 deaths.

The crucial assumption is that any increase in deaths after the invasion began on March 19, 2003 is associated with the conflict and subsequent occupation, to the exclusion of any other factor. Specifically, their sample included 46 reported pre-invasion deaths, only one of which was violent, and 89 post-invasion deaths outside Falluja, 21 of which were violent. According to a table that breaks down the causes of death, fewer than half of the "excess deaths" (45 percent) resulted from violence. One in five was accidental, one in six was due to heart attack or stroke, just under one in 10 was caused by infectious disease, and the same proportion consisted of neonatal or infant deaths. Yet all these deaths without exception were attributed to the war and occupation.

The researchers noted that their overall totals include "12 violent deaths not attributed to coalition forces," including seven murders, two of unknown origin, two from anti-coalition forces, and one "from the previous régime during the invasion." Because this listing includes violent deaths from Falluja, we cannot say how many were among the 20 "excess deaths" from the other 32 clusters. It is troubling, however, that there was only one reported violent death during the entire pre-invasion period. Wen a single instance represents the sum total of violent deaths committed by criminals, "the previous régime," and all unknown parties during the 14 months prior to the invasion, it suggests the instability of the data, the probability of increased measurement error, and the danger of calculating changes in mortality rates from such a low base.

Yet that is precisely what the researchers did in estimating the proportion of excess deaths and increased risk of death attributable to violence. In fact, they upped the ante by including the figures from Falluja in these calculations, after excluding it from their estimate of 100,000 excess deaths for being an "extreme statistical outlier". In the 97 percent of the country sampled apart from Falluja, it is not true that "most of the excess deaths" were due to violence. Similarly, their conclusion that the rate of death from violence was "58 times higher" after the invasion was based on comparing the one pre-invasion violent death with 52 post-invasion deaths in the Falluja neighborhood they sampled, in addition to the 21 deaths in the other 32 neighborhoods throughout the country.

Thus, it is highly problematic to attribute so many violent deaths and such a high risk of death throughout Iraq to totals that depend so heavily on a single neighborhood out of 33 sampled. But it is also problematic to blame the war and occupation for all increases in fatal accidents, heart attacks, infectious diseases, and neonatal and infant mortality that occurred since the invasion. Even if the sampling was flawless and the self-reports entirely accurate, the total number of reported deaths should be the starting point for estimating conflict-related mortality not the finish line.

Dr. Robert Lichter is President of the Statistical Assessment Service
http://www.stats.org/record.jsp?type=news&ID=481

Foxfyre, Ticomaya, McGentrix: If the true body count was 100,000, would that change your opinion about the Iraq war being justified? CI: If the true body count was 30,000, which is the latest IBC number, would that change your opinion about the Iraq war not being justified?

I don't think so.

Well, I saw Thomas posted in the midst of this discussion and thought we were going to be privileged to read his opinion of the accuracy of the statistical sampling of the Lancet survey. Sadly, we are not.

But as you guessed, the correct answer to your question is, "no," the body count does not drive whether the war is/was justified. I don't see how any post-invasion factor could affect whether the war was justified or not.

But that doesn't alter the fact that the Lancet survey is flawed .... don't you agree?

I agree that press reports based on the Lancet survey were flawed. The Lancet survey itself honestly acknowledged the imprecision of its results. And given that IBC's immediate casualties were around 15,000 at the time the study was published, 100,000 remains a plausible figure for the overall change of mortality, which includes indirect effects of the war in addition to the immediate body count.

And I will say that I believe the war was justified if the initial intelligence had been accurate, and the war was justified by what we in fact found after the invasion including a people who very much want to control their own destiny and be part of the 'reputable' world.

At the rate Saddam and his henchmen were knocking off any Iraqi citizens who were perceived to be pro-American, anti- Saddam, or any other form of political opponent, I don't know if we know yet whether American-caused civilian casualties anywhere nearly approximate that.

As I posted earlier today, the media has been so unbalanced in its reporting, nobody but those who really dig are getting close to an accurate picture of what it is like in Iraq. I think the national debate would be much different if we were getting the whole story instead of so much focus on anything that makes the current administration or the military look bad.

You don't find that the rush to press of that "imprecise" study before the US Presidential election speaks volumes?

And it appears many of the flawed press reports were directly caused by the members of the survey team:



... and certainly indirectly caused by the failure of the survey to fully explain what "95% CI 8000-194 000" meant.

It speaks to a desire of authors to maximize their impact -- which was greater before the election than after it. If they were running for public office, that would be reason for me not to vote for them -- but they're not. The Bush supporters by contrast, also known as Republicans, are running for public office. So it's their hyping of the evidence I worry about.

No, they aren't politicians ... just partisans.

Maybe if the media was more honest, Thomas wouldn't think those running for office were 'hyping the evidence' so much.