Cost of war: Survey Sees 100,000 Iraqi Deaths

[Kulapavana]

Source: News

Published: October 28, 2004 Author: Emma Ross of the Associated Press

Household Survey Sees 100,000 Iraqi Deaths

 

By EMMA ROSS, AP Medical Writer

 

 

LONDON - A survey of deaths in Iraqi households estimates that as many as 100,000 more people may have died throughout the country in the 18 months after the U.S. invasion than would be expected based on the death rate before the war.

 

There is no official figure for the number of Iraqis killed since the conflict began, but some non-governmental estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000. As of Wednesday, 1,081 U.S. servicemen had been killed, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

 

The scientists who wrote the report concede that the data they based their projections on were of "limited precision," because the quality of the information depends on the accuracy of the household interviews used for the study. The interviewers were Iraqi, most of them doctors.

 

Designed and conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and the Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, the study is being published Thursday on the Web site of The Lancet medical journal.

 

The survey indicated violence accounted for most of the extra deaths seen since the invasion, and air strikes from coalition forces caused most of the violent deaths, the researchers wrote in the British-based journal.

 

"Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children," they said.

 

The report was released just days before the U.S. presidential election, and the lead researcher said he wanted it that way. The Lancet routinely publishes papers on the Web before they appear in print, particularly if it considers the findings of urgent public health interest.

 

Those reports then appear later in the print issue of the journal. The journal's spokesmen said they were uncertain which print issue the Iraqi report would appear in and said it was too late to make Friday's issue, and possibly too late for the Nov. 5 edition.

 

Les Roberts, the lead researcher from Johns Hopkins, said the article's timing was up to him.

 

"I emailed it in on Sept. 30 under the condition that it came out before the election," Roberts told The Asocciated Press. "My motive in doing that was not to skew the election. My motive was that if this came out during the campaign, both candidates would be forced to pledge to protect civilian lives in Iraq.

 

"I was opposed to the war and I still think that the war was a bad idea, but I think that our science has transcended our perspectives," Roberts said. "As an American, I am really, really sorry to be reporting this."

 

Richard Peto, an expert on study methods who was not involved with the research, said the approach the scientists took is a reasonable one to investigate the Iraq death toll.

 

However, it's possible that they may have zoned in on hotspots that might not be representative of the death toll across Iraq, said Peto, a professor of medical statistics at Oxford University in England.

 

To conduct the survey, investigators visited 33 neighborhoods spread evenly across the country in September, randomly selecting clusters of 30 households to sample. Of the 988 households visited, 808, consisting of 7,868 people, agreed to participate in the survey. At each one they asked how many people lived in the home and how many births and deaths there had been since January 2002.

 

The scientists then compared death rates in the 15 months before the invasion with those that occurred during the 18 months after the attack and adjusted those numbers to account for the different time periods.

 

Even though the sample size appears small, this type of survey is considered accurate and acceptable by scientists and was used to calculate war deaths in Kosovo in the late 1990s.

 

The investigators worked in teams of three. Five of the six Iraqi interviewers were doctors and all six were fluent in English and Arabic.

 

In the households reporting deaths, the person who died had to be living there at the time of the death and for more than two months before to be counted. In an attempt at firmer confirmation, the interviewers asked for death certificates in 78 households and were provided them 63 times.

 

There were 46 deaths in the surveyed households before the war. After the invasion, there were 142 deaths. That is an increase from 5 deaths per 1,000 people per year to 12.3 per 1,000 people per year — more than double.

 

However, more than a third of the post-invasion deaths were reported in one cluster of households in the city Falluja, where fighting has been most intense recently. Because the fighting was so severe there, the numbers from that location may have exaggerated the overall picture.

 

When the researchers recalculated the effect of the war without the statistics from Falluja, the deaths end up at 7.9 per 1,000 people per year — still 1.5 times higher than before the war.

 

Even with Falluja factored out, the survey "indicates that the death toll associated with the invasion and occupation of Iraq is more likely than not about 100,000 people, and may be much higher," the report said.

 

The most common causes of death before the invasion of Iraq were heart attacks, strokes and other chronic diseases. However, after the invasion, violence was recorded as the primary cause of death and was mainly attributed to coalition forces — with about 95 percent of those deaths caused by bombs or fire from helicopter gunships.

 

Violent deaths — defined as those brought about by the intentional act of others — were reported in 15 of the 33 clusters. The chances of a violent death were 58 times higher after the invasion than before it, the researchers said.

 

Twelve of the 73 violent deaths were not attributed to coalition forces. The researchers said 28 children were killed by coalition forces in the survey households. Infant mortality rose from 29 deaths per 1,000 live births before the war to 57 deaths per 1,000 afterward.

 

The researchers estimated the nationwide death toll due to the conflict by multiplying the difference between the two death rates by the estimated population of Iraq — 24.4 million at the start of the war. The result was then multiplied by 18 months, the average period between the invasion and the survey interviews.

 

"We estimate that there were 98,000 extra deaths during the postwar period in the 97 percent of Iraq represented by all the clusters except Falluja," the researchers said in the journal.

 

"This isn't about individual soldiers doing bad things. This appears to be a problem with the approach to occupation in Iraq," Roberts said.

 

The researchers called for further confirmation by an independent body such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, or the World Health Organization.

 

The study was funded by the Center for International Emergency Disaster and Refugee Studies at Johns Hopkins University and by the Small Arms Survey in Geneva, Switzerland, a research project based at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.

 

http://www.thelancet.com

 

[Kulapavana]

so... 100,000 human lives and at least 250 billions dollars later (not counting the cost of lost infrastructure, productivity, etc.) can you say ANYBODY is better off thanks to this war?

 

YES! people who own companies like Haliburton and Exxon.

[Guest guest]

The mosyt disturbing facts about pentagon releases concerning battle deaths of american soldiers is that only the dead on the battlefield are counted.

 

So, If a humvee with eight soldiers is blown up, and one is dead, americans are told that one is dead, and seven are injured. If all seven die en route to the mash or hospital ship, they are never listed as war dead. If a soldier dies statesside because of battlefield wounds, he is also not listed as an american war dead. So, although there is only 1,000 or so listred as american war dead, there are thousands of soldiers whom have died as a result of their injuries. Also not listed is civilian deaths, like the para-militarist security contractors. Those american folks who were beheaded as a result of this illegal war are NOT listed as war dead, not are civilians even listed among the injured, even though they draw taxpayer funds (often even greater than their official military counterparts.)

 

From my sources, there are over 2,500 American deaths "in-country", over 25,000 injuries, many of which are so critical that the victims are vegetables or will die in less than a year. When we read of injuries listed in pentagon casualty figures, we are not considering the ones who immediately return to their units. The casualty injuries listed are the types to transport the victim out-of-country.

 

Americas cost, although not as horrendous as those Iraqis who have been victimized by "friendly" fire (meaning those not fighting against the American Invasion), is exponentially larger than admitted by the liars who gave us this gift of sparing bin laDEN.

 

mahak

[AncientMariner]

On the Coast to Coast radio program last night there was a guy Dr. Steven Greer saying the federal government has supressed technology that would make us less dependent on foreign oil or not dependent on it at all. This has been going on for years. Its a shame that both political parties have dropped the ball on energy and if this had been done years ago we basically could have told the whole Middle East to buzz off because we wouldn't need them anymore anyway. Its a shame to see young people die because of inept and greedy politicians, businessmen etc.

 

I always agreed with Pat Buchanan's isolationist policies but for some reason when I realized the Republicans were not going to follow Buchanan I fell into that trap of supporting Bush blindly because I couldn't stand another 4 years of the Clinton retreads that let Bin Laden get away in the first place. Alright I will say it. The War in Iraq was a mistake. I am still going to vote for Bush because like Buchanan says:

 

"Why? Because, while Bush and Kerry are both wrong on Iraq, Sharon, Nafta, the WTO, open borders, affirmative action, amnesty, free trade, foreign aid, and Big Government, Bush is right on taxes, judges, sovereignty, and values. Kerry is right on nothing."

 

"The only compelling argument for endorsing Kerry is to punish Bush for Iraq. But why should Kerry be rewarded. He voted to hand Bush a blank check for war. Though he calls Iraq a "colassal" error, "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said he would-even had he known Saddam had no role in 9/11 and no WMD-vote the same way today. This is the Richard Perle position."

 

"For Kerry is a man who came home from Vietnam to slime the soldiers,..........His conduct was as treasonous as that of Jane Fonda and disqualifies him from ever being commander-in- chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America."

 

"As a senator, he voted to undermine the policy of Ronald Reagan that brought us victory in the Cold War.........His stands on Iraq are about as coherent as a self-portrait by Jackson Pollock."

 

"I cannot endorse the candidate of Michael Moore, George Soros, and Barbara Streisand, nor endorse a course of action that would put this political windsurfer into the presidency, no matter how deep our disagreement with the fiscal, foreign, immigration, and trade policies of George W. Bush."

 

The whole article is entitled Coming Home by Patrick J. Buchanan and can be found at www.amconmag.com

 

Yo, Yo, Yo (taps the mic). I would like to say welcome home Pat Buchanan as you truly are one of the great political minds of our time and unfortunately the mass elite media and the people in general have failed to appreciate your genius and in many cases have merely mocked your stupendous intellect. It is at our own peril that we have ignored your warnings.

[theist]

I never agreed much with his isolationist views. He was right about the southern border needing a huge steel wall but was wrong about America not acting unless this nation was itself threatened.

 

I believe America's role on the world stage should be one of the ethical ksatriya. Any helpless folks on the planet should be protected by America irregardless of any threat to us or any strategic value they may have to offer us. Every would be dictator should fear acting on his fantasies knowing the US will bomb his ass once he starts devouring his own people.

 

In this sense borders mean next to nothing to me. Kill and torturing the citizens of one country should be viewed and treated by us as if our own had been mistreated. Why? Because they are our own. The Sudanese and the Iraqi's are just as much my brothers and sisters as the man next door who looks like me and speaks my language.

 

I definetly agree on the alternative energy sourcing though. That was about the only good program I remember Carter coming up with was his support for solar energy. The Reagan administration shot that down.

[AncientMariner]

Even being an isolationist country we could still pull off political assasinations and various other covert operations. I think America should isolate itself from the rest of the World and become a God conscious country and make it clear to people that if you want to come to our country there will be no blasphemizing of God and no cow killing or you will be punished. Unfortunately most of the European countries and America have become full of a bunch of homosexual atheists. Columbus came to America to get away from the enforced cult ritualistic worship of homosexual popes etc. and so on and so forth and now America has descended into this darkness. Thanks to Clinton etc. now they are trying to transplant this European model back to America and destroy the good work of the founding fathers. I am not opposed to a world government but it should be run by pure devotees not by homosexual atheists.

 

"Prabhupada: Why Not? Christianity in Vaisnavism. Christianism is Vaisnavism. Anyone who accepts the supremacy of God, he's a Vaisnava. So Christian, Christianity, "God is great," they say. So that is Vaisnavism, "God is great." (Conversation, August 5, 1976)

[sumedh]

Hare Krishna and dandavats

 

prabhuji in my opinion this is too far stretched.

 

I believe America's role on the world stage should be one of the ethical ksatriya. Any helpless folks on the planet should be protected by America irregardless of any threat to us or any strategic value they may have to offer us. Every would be dictator should fear acting on his fantasies knowing the US will bomb his ass once he starts devouring his own people.

 

 

 

What about the opinion of people in other nations? The other nations have such deep rooted suspicion/hatred of US that it can't jump from being an active perpetrator of war to the role of holy kshatriya. It will require so much groundwork to come even close to Parikshit ideal. Only when it first sets its policies in correct order, then the leaders taking guidance from Spritual Masters undo the damage done by its policies, then set its own house in order ... and when the other nations have complete confidence in the US and the permanence of its correct policies can such a role be contemplated on.

Till then such attitude will only be hypocrisy and will be seen such by others.