Charlie's Diary

No disagreement with your points re civilian mortality in Iraq (although I've already heard rightwing nutbars in the US claim that the Coalition bears no responsibility for deaths due to sectarian violence--never mind that we took the lid off with no plan to deal with it. We gave them freedom, by God, and it's not our fault that those brown people can't handle it!). However, re:

The Eisenhower (and another carrier group) are due to arrive in the gulf on October 21st.

The Yorkshire Ranter has a somewhat more sanguine take on the USS Eisenhower carrier group deployment. I don't remember seeing anything there about a second carrier group, though. Which one were you thinking of?

JBWoodford

Posted by: JBWoodford | October 11, 2006 4:26 PM

Charlie, I wish you'd post more political opinions on your blog. If you think U.S. politics and policy look weird (OK OK downright evil) from where you are, it looks even worse here. President Clinton was impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanors" consisting of . . . well, nothing of much significance. Now, we've got a president, much of his cabinet, and members of Congress who are doing much worse, and all the talk is about how they've got to keep their majority in Congress or the Democrats will take charge, and we all remember how bad Clinton was.

(Remember Clinton? How the "family values" crowd screamed for blood? Where are they now?)

I live in the most Republican state in the nation, and I can tell you it's disturbing. My own values are more on the "conservative" side - i.e., I believe in a government of limited powers - but I don't see any so-called conservatives who even pay lip service to that ideal any more. Sad, and disheartening.

So, feel free to wax political on your blog. I won't complain.

Posted by: Russ Gray | October 11, 2006 4:31 PM

Actually, recent polls show the Republicans are in trouble -- not because of the war (which half of Americans support more or less) -- but because of Foley and his naughty emails.

The truth is, most Americans don't really care how many Iraqis die. Most opposition to the war is based on the number of US deaths or the cost, as far as I can see. Most of the deaths are the fault of the Iraqis, the US has been remarkably restrained (look at what we did in Vietnam, for instance).

And personally, I think a civil war is better than oppression. The best thing we could do is split Iraq into three countries. Trying to create nations out of Colonial era administrative divisions doesn't work.

Posted by: Andrew G. | October 11, 2006 4:44 PM

Your job, if you're voting in the upcoming election, is to decide whether you want to let a politician who cold-bloodedly ordered 655,000 murders in order to win his last mid-term election get away with the same trick twice, on behalf of his page-buggering, bribe-taking buddies.

The reason I qualified that statement about how good Portland is as a place to live is a local news article I saw a couple of days ago. For a long time, Portland has been a very tolerant place, especially by US standards. It was one of the few cities to attempt to change the climate of homophobia that's been rising in the last few years by performing gay marriages (until the state government stopped us). So I was shocked and saddened to find out that a local high school principal had decided to stop his school from performing a play in which tolerance towards homosexuality is openly advocated. The fact that the play re-enacts the rather gruesome murder of a teenager just because he was gay (a real crime committed only a few years ago), and that the play is primarily about why killing people you disapprove of is a bad thing, seems to have escaped the principal's attention in his zeal to protect his students from the "homosexual agenda".

But don't mind me. I'm just a foreigner, and my opinions don't count.

Posted by: Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) | October 11, 2006 5:02 PM

Charlie,

You're mistaken on several items.

I suppose there could be something in the Geneva Conventions on counting civilians killed (although I'm not aware of any), it would only make sense that this applies to the ones killed by U.S. action. I seriously doubt this could apply to those killed by insurgents.

The notion that "the occupiers are refusing to keep records of civilian deaths" is dubious. I can only guess that this comes from the quote atop a particular anti-American website where General Tommy Franks was answering a question about enemy body counts in Afghanistan. He only meant that we don't keep score that way, which is what the reporter's question was getting at. For all the noise about the Geneva Conventions, it appears to me that the U.S. and its allies are the only ones who do care about them. (Note that the far left has all but disavowed them.)

Besides that, the "occupation" ended a couple of years ago. Some might say that the U.S. still takes the blame for civilians killed by our enemies, but I think any expectation that we'd still get the job for tallying them takes this too far.

On the Lancet study, I'm sure you remember they published a six figure body count a couple of years ago, and it was disputed then. I'd question any study that polls Iraqis at a time when reporters have to hire local stringers to fetch stories from out of the green zone. Some of the Iraqis certainly have motives to inflate their body counts anyway.

As for an imminent attack on Iran, I think there's no chance of that as things stand now, and doubtful even if provoked. You might recall that Bush had been criticized for holding the retaking of Fallujah until after the 2004 elections. What you're suggesting would run counter to that.

Posted by: Randy Beck | October 11, 2006 5:36 PM

Charlie:
Yeah I notice that the same people who criticise the methodology for this study don't criticse similar studies (often carried out by the same people) when they fit their particular agenda. Where do they think that the numbers for the Congo, or Sudan came from? For that matter, what about the various estimates for people killed by Saddam?

Randy:

"The notion that "the occupiers are refusing to keep records of civilian deaths" is dubious."

Nothing dubious about it. They don't keep numbers, and have stated on several occasions that they don't think it is their job. If you think they're not refusing to keep records, then presumably the US military is keeping figures, in which case where are they?

"On the Lancet study, I'm sure you remember they published a six figure body count a couple of years ago, and it was disputed then."

It was disputed by people who were statistically illiterate with ludicrous arguments. Nobody (and I really mean nobody) who had any expertise in these kind of sampling, or understood statistics, criticised the report. The main criticism made by real experts (rather than random party flacks on CNN) was that the sample size was quite small (something acknowledged by the writers, who didn't have the resources to interview more people), which meant that the accuracy of the figure was quite low. This time the sample size is far larger, and so the number is far more accurate.

"I'd question any study that polls Iraqis at a time when reporters have to hire local stringers to fetch stories from out of the green zone. Some of the Iraqis certainly have motives to inflate their body counts anyway."

The survey was carried out by Iraqi doctors with experience of carrying out surveys. 80% of deaths were verified with death certificate, and there was no significant difference between those verified in this way, and those which weren't (so its unlikely that people were lying).

The authors of the paper, btw, who have carried out similar surveys in some of the most dangerous war zones in the world. There probably is nobody better qualified to design this kind of survey.

Posted by: Cian O'Connor | October 11, 2006 8:20 PM

Article 34 of the

Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol 1)
Adopted on 8 June 1977 by the Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of
International Humanitarian Law applicable in Armned Conflicts
entry into force 7 December 1979, in accordance with Article 95

Implies records.
It is not restricted to results of the actions of combatants.
All of the Geneva Conventions are available to read on the Web, with commentaries and other remarks about them. Denial is not a satisfactory response.

I think the counter-revolution has succeeded. A pity.

(The Lancet has a more complicated reputation, it is good, but it also has been controversial - outspoken - from early on. Johns Hopkins which is where the paper has authors also has a good reputation.)

Posted by: Adrian Midgley | October 11, 2006 9:32 PM

Cian,

I only assume the military is keeping figures of those killed in engagements with them. That doesn't mean I expect anything to be made public.

My point was not about whether or not the U.S. is counting civilian casualties, but whether or not the U.S. is "refusing to keep records" and I inferred from Charlie's post that some treaty requires this, and we're breaking it by not doing so. If there is some treaty obligation then I've never seen it cited.

If this survey was carried out by Iraqi doctors then that doesn't reassure me in the slightest. Making comparisons to those with death certificates is an interesting way of discerning honesty, but that doesn't reassure me either. I can just see these doctors explaining their ethical obligations to Al Sadr's goons.

It turns out that the previous study "just happened" to come out a month before the U.S. elections in October 2004. At this rate we might expect the next to appear conveniently a month before election day 2008.

But let's assume for the moment that the study is correct. Where are all the "anti-war" movement-types demanding an end to the civil war?

They're more than willing to march against the U.S., and certainly Israel, but what about stopping the fighting before another 655,000 Iraqis get killed? Does anybody care about that? Or do you think the Sunni and Shia will start shaking hands after the U.S. leaves?

Posted by: Randy Beck | October 11, 2006 9:55 PM

Adrian,

The U.S. is not a signatory to Protocol I.

Even so, Article 34 is about respecting their graves. To read it in the way you're reaching for would imply that we need to look at every headstone.

Cian,

If you don't see my message yet, be assured (not that it really matters), I replied earlier. I think that's being held because it contains links. Either that or I went into the wrong section, in which case I humbly apologize to Charlie.

Posted by: Randy Beck | October 11, 2006 10:02 PM

Charlie, you know what despots used to do to messengers bearing bad news. Nowadays they can't do that - its not the publicity so much as the difficulty getting blood out of that nice blue caropet - so they get their lap dogs to yap and yap and yap until everyone is so sick and tired of the noise that they cover their ears and so don't hear the bad news.

Which doesn't mean the bad news isn't true.

Posted by: Martyn Taylor | October 11, 2006 11:03 PM

Before you place any faith in the Lancet study, Charlie, please consider this: the Iraq Body Count (www.iraqbodycount.com) states between 43,000 and 48,000 Iraqi deaths in reported and confirmed violent events since the invasion in 2003. This means that, according to the Lancet study, for every death by violence that's been reported, between 7 and 14 more deaths by violence have occurred that have not been reported. This, when the press in Iraq has been looking specifically for deaths by violence, ignoring all else. Does that strike you as plausible? What fraction of violent deaths due to "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland were reported at the time, and thus would have appeared in an "Ireland Body Count", compared to the true total?

Posted by: Michael Brazier | October 12, 2006 1:55 AM

Regarding a potential Iranian invasion, I point you at a comment I made on another blog. Rather than clog things up here, I'll just attempt a link to it here. In short, our military is stretched too thin, and enough neo-cons are aware of it for a third invasion to be doable without a draft. Some far extremists in our own government think a Draft is doable, but at this stage of the game any congress critter who votes in favor of one will REALLY get dinged in the polls. NOT an election-year issue.

That said, some big new Iraqi/Afghani offensive in the weeks before the election are well within reason.

As for the Lancet article, I heard a discussion with the authors today on NPR. There was some pointed questioning, but one quotation sticks in my mind. When asked about inflated numbers and how the researchers could validate their information, the guy said that the Iraqis asked about deaths could produce a death certificate in 80% of the cases. The audio can be found on the NPR.org site here, though I'm having trouble finding a transcript to quote from.

As for the Geneva requirements, we haven't been an Occupying Power since we handed over power in.. summer of whatever it was.

I can't understate the impact of a vote to reactivate the draft will have on American politics. Especially one that either narrowly fails or actually passes. These wars aren't quite popular right now, though the ambivalence factor is pretty high. Having the government force Our Young Men (and those Women who receive draft requests and show up of their own will) into battle brings the war MUCH closer to home than it has been. It won't be just military families facing the possibility of a tour-of-no-return, it'll be civilian families with zero military background doing the fearing. That ambivalence will gel into Opinion very quickly. That's why I think a third front is not feasable at this time.

Posted by: Greg R | October 12, 2006 2:54 AM

The Iraq Body Count (which is actually at www.iraqbodycount.org) is a count of deaths which got mentioned in the Western Press. Personally, I would not be surprised for that to be a minority of the actual "excess deaths"; YMMV.

Posted by: "Charles Dodgson" | October 12, 2006 2:57 AM

Where are all the "anti-war" movement-types demanding an end to the civil war?

It seems obvious to me that "the 'anti-war' movement-types" in question march when and where they think they have some hope of influencing events. You may note the lack of recent marches against the Iraq war in the US; I conjecture that this is because "the 'anti-war' movement-types" believe that the current administration will listen to them about as much as the various foreign fighters, Iraqi militias, and other assorted insurgents will.

It turns out that the previous study "just happened" to come out a month before the U.S. elections in October 2004.

Having submitted a paper for publication in a research journal, I can tell you that in my experience the timing of the process can't really be controlled that well. Even with only two reviewers it's a crap shoot how long the peer reviews take, what changes the reviewers will ask for, how long it'll take to make those changes, and what they may ask for after the first round. I've read that Lancet uses four reviewers, which just makes it more likely that at least one of them is going to ask for substantive changes. Do you know when it was submitted? Do you know if the authors had to make any changes? Do you seriously think that the authors have any control over the timing of the publication? If...IF the editors tried to time it that precisely I'll concede the point, but right now all I've seen is your speculation.

JBWoodford

Posted by: JBWoodford | October 12, 2006 3:51 AM

Michael, first, it's hard to report from Iraq. IIRC, foreign journalists have been forced to rely almost entirely on Iraqi journalists, and that those people are under massive constraints. Please remember that Iraq is a place where the police set up roadblocks, and murder people for having a name which implies the wrong religious sect.

Second (I don't have the cite), it was claimed (by the Lancet article authors for the first article, IIRC), that, with the sole exception of Bosnia, there's a rule of thumb which states that fewer than 20% of deaths are reported in the media, in countries which are experiencing civil wars. If one stops to think of this, it's hardly surprising - reporting is lethally difficult, there's a constant drumbeat of killings, and many factions in, around, or outside of the government don't want things reported on.

Third, (again, IIRC), the Iraq Bodycount Project has very stringent requirements - two independent accounts of a death.

Posted by: Barry | October 12, 2006 3:56 AM

Randy: " Where are all the "anti-war" movement-types demanding an end to the civil war?"

Probably right next to the pro-war people, who are conducting those massive marches every month, demanding that the US also intervene in Dafur, the Congo, etc.

Randy, do you understand that (a) protests in the USA won't effect the behavior of the Iraqi combatans, (b) the potential protesters are well aware of that, and (c) that the US doesn't have any available method of bringing this war to a successful conclusion?

Posted by: Barry | October 12, 2006 4:02 AM

The Lancet study is a load of crap. It was a sample of exactly 547 reported deaths, extrapolated to extremes by the study's authors.

As a comparison, from Tim Blair:

"Let’s put Lancet’s number in perspective:

* It is larger than the total number of Americans killed during combat in every major conflict, from the Revolutionary War to the first Gulf War.

* It is more than double the combined number of civilians killed in the bombings of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.

* It is a larger number than were killed in Germany during five years (and 955,044 tons) of WWII bombing."

Not to mention, of course, that somehow the invasion of Iraq more than doubled the incidence of death from old age (apparently, the presence of US forces make Iraqis age at many times the rate they were aging at before, due to some top-secret time flow accelerator gadget) and quadrupled the incidence of death from heart failure and coronary disease, according to the report (I guess the Evil American Fast Food has started having an effect). Not to mention the increase from two violent deaths under Saddam to over 300 in the current sample...

In other words, you've been suckered by some extremely bad propaganda masquerading as science.

Posted by: cirby | October 12, 2006 5:58 AM

Cirby, you seem to have forgotten that the situation here is different- we're talking about what, a country of 20 million people, over a period of years, in a conflict involving lots of small arms. Look at Rwanda, Darfur, bosnia etc. Its amazing what you can do with lots of small arms. Comparisons to Dresden etc are pointless.

The germans in WW2 had bomb shelters, evacutations etc. Here we have what is in effect localised violence and murders. Not to mention that in WW2 there were more targets than just cities with people in them.

And do you have a cite for it not being standard methodology to extrapolate in this way in a study? Do you have a counter study, carried out using standard statistical methods, showing a different number?

And Andrew G, I'm so glad I dont live in the same country as someone such as yourself, who considers civil war, with its associated heavy body count and immense amount of pain, as better than a dictatorship.

Posted by: guthrie | October 12, 2006 9:31 AM

Somebody has been suckered Cirby, but somehow I don't think its Charlie.

"The Lancet study is a load of crap. It was a sample of exactly 547 reported deaths, extrapolated to extremes by the study's authors."

No, it was a sample of 12801 individuals. This yielded 629 births, 80% of which were verified using death certificates. If you don't understand the difference, then you're really not in a position to judge the validity of the report.

"* It is larger than the total number of Americans killed during combat in every major conflict, from the Revolutionary War to the first Gulf War."

And its far smaller than the number of Vietnamese killed by America in the Vietnam war, or the number who've died in the Congo. Who died in the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Than who were exterminated in concentration camps. So what? What is this supposed to prove?

"* It is more than double the combined number of civilians killed in the bombings of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki."

You're suggesting that two nuclear bombs would have similar affects to that of violent resistence to occupation, civil war and bloody lawlessness? I mean seriously? Gosh.

"It is a larger number than were killed in Germany during five years (and 955,044 tons) of WWII bombing."

And did the report suggest that all these people were killed by bombs? That this is the result of bombings? Again, what relevance has this got to anything?

"Not to mention, of course, that somehow the invasion of Iraq more than doubled the incidence of death from old age"

Not entirely sure where you got that from. I couldn't see any reference to that in the report.
Non-violent deaths have increased significantly, but then the health care system has collapsed, the water system has collapsed, lack of fuel and electricity means people can't run air-conditioning - so how is this surprising?

"Not to mention the increase from two violent deaths under Saddam to over 300 in the current sample..."

Um. You do know that Saddam wasn't engaging in mass murder in the few years prior the invasion, right? That those killings happened earlier? You do know that the criminals who are kidnapping and killing people at the moment were locked up in jails? You do know that there was not a violent civil war going on? That there was no bloody resistance to the US going on in places like Fallujah?

Posted by: Cian | October 12, 2006 9:35 AM

Cian, you mean 629 deaths, not births.

Posted by: guthrie | October 12, 2006 11:15 AM

So the Associated Press is a propaganda arm of the Republican party? Charlie, do you have any idea of how paranoid, hysterical and ignorant that sounds?

How far Left do you have to be before liberal news organizations like the AP look like fascists?

Posted by: Daniel Duffy | October 12, 2006 11:16 AM

Several people have noted that the IBC only tracks reported deaths, and that these are typically 20% of actual deaths.
But it's also worth noting the IBC only tracks civillian deaths directly attributable to US/allied military involvement. A US soldier shooting a civillian dead is counted by the IBC.
However, deaths due to disease, poverty, the entire country's infrastructure being wrecked, not to mention shootings and bombings by non-Allied forces, are not tracked by the IBC.
The Lancet study does include these, and compares them to pre-invasion figures.
The effect is that while the IBC measures only the effects of military combat operations, the Lancet measures the effect of the invasion, toppling of Saddam, resultant instability, and subsequent mismanagement of the country by the occupiers.
Combine this with the 5x multiplier from reported vs actual deaths, and the Lancet figure sounds surprisingly low to me...

And, Mr Duffy, 1. Charlie didn't accuse the AP of being a propaganda arm, he accused the CSIS of that -- wrt. the AP, he accused one specific article of being biased, and 2. The AP is only "liberal" relative to your own personal viewpoint.

Perhaps the article's author is biased, or perhaps the article is another victim of "unbiased" reporting having come to mean "reporting every claim equally, however dubious the source" -- such as a collection of Defense Department officials, investment bankers and oil company executives.

Posted by: Canis | October 12, 2006 11:48 AM

Randy, I didn't see your response before:
"I only assume the military is keeping figures of those killed in engagements with them. That doesn't mean I expect anything to be made public."

1) The Lancet article surveyed the number of Iraqis who died, no matter what the cause.
2) What could the US military possibly gain from keeping such figures secret, if they were lower than the other estimates being made? The only reason to keep them secret (if they are being kept), would be because they are embarrassing in some way.
3) Such figures if they were kept would not be terribly accurate (they wouldn't include a large number of bomb/shelling victims - or bodies that were burried in some way). The Lancet methodology, as it happens, is far more accurate.

"My point was not about whether or not the U.S. is counting civilian casualties, but whether or not the U.S. is "refusing to keep records" and I inferred from Charlie's post that some treaty requires this, and we're breaking it by not doing so."

I believe the Geneva convention is quite explicit on the need for occupying powers to do this. I haven't checked this personally.

"If this survey was carried out by Iraqi doctors then that doesn't reassure me in the slightest. Making comparisons to those with death certificates is an interesting way of discerning honesty, but that doesn't reassure me either. I can just see these doctors explaining their ethical obligations to Al Sadr's goons."

This is pretty incoherent. I'm not sure what's "interesting" about the use of death certificates - it seems a fairly sensible and uncontroversial approach, but then I'm clearly not the expert on epidemological surveys that you seem to believe that you are.

Nor can I see why the doctors would have to explain anything to Al Sadr's goons (particularly in Sunni and Kurdish areas). Given that a huge number of the people killed seem to have been killed by either criminals, or Iraqi militia men (its all there in the report, perhaps you should read it), what possible interest would they have in inflating it.

"It turns out that the previous study "just happened" to come out a month before the U.S. elections in October 2004. At this rate we might expect the next to appear conveniently a month before election day 2008."

Even if this is true, so what? Are you really so contemptuous of democracy that you think its important that when Americans are voting they shouldn't know the full facts about Iraq before voting? If 600,000 people have died as a result of this, might that not be relevant?

"But let's assume for the moment that the study is correct. Where are all the "anti-war" movement-types demanding an end to the civil war?"

Um, come again? Are you suggesting that marching in New York/London/wherever is going to have an effect on militia men in Iraq? Or violent criminals in Iraq? Is this supposed to be a serious suggestion?

"They're more than willing to march against the U.S., and certainly Israel"

Do you not think that going on a demonstration against your own government might have slightly more effect than marching against fighters half way across the world?
And Israel is financially supported by the US, so marching aginst (or indeed for) them in the US also makes some sense.

"but what about stopping the fighting before another 655,000 Iraqis get killed? Does anybody care about that? Or do you think the Sunni and Shia will start shaking hands after the U.S. leaves?"

Given that the violence has got worse and worse with the American presence, and wouldn't have happened without the US invasion, what purpose does our presence there serve? Things might well get worse. But things are getting worse anyway.

Posted by: Cian | October 12, 2006 12:46 PM

Daniel, the Associated Press is a wire service. What it puts out on the wire is whatever its affiliates put into it. Those affiliates come from a number of organizations, with different editorial and other policies. Because it's just a raw newsfeed you need to carefully evaluate the source and bias (overt or otherwise) of everything you read on it.

Clear so far?

And putting the word "controversial" in the first sentence of a news release about a peer-reviewed statistical study in a highly respected academic journal of record is a fairly good indicator that someone is trying to spin the piece.

Posted by: Charlie Stross | October 12, 2006 12:50 PM

Cirby: "Not to mention, of course, that somehow the invasion of Iraq more than doubled the incidence of death from old age (apparently, the presence of US forces make Iraqis age at many times the rate they were aging at before, due to some top-secret time flow accelerator gadget)"

Cirby, let me clue you in on something. When one is elderly, one experiences a myriad of afflictions. Modern medical care, good food, clean water, etcl. are very useful for mitigating these. Lack of same puts one into a position where life is nasty, brutish and short (to steal a quote). Do you actually not understand human biology 101?

"and quadrupled the incidence of death from heart failure and coronary disease, according to the report (I guess the Evil American Fast Food has started having an effect)."

To reiterate, it's amazing how deprivation works so well with other causes to kill.

Posted by: Barry | October 12, 2006 12:54 PM

Barry: I suspect you need to recalibrate your sarcasm detector. It appears to be giving false negatives ...

Posted by: Charlie Stross | October 12, 2006 12:59 PM

AP are, of course, one of the institutions mis-describing Foley as a Democrat. That's how credible their reporting is.

Posted by: Martyn Taylor | October 12, 2006 1:00 PM

For those of you who desperately need the Iraqi death numbers to be so high, note that, overall, conditions in Iraq aren't anywhere near "desperate," or, for that matter, bad at all. They've got a strong, growing economy (you don't get that in a place where people are dying at the rate the Lancet study is pretending). The various world health groups note that, overall, people are getting better and more plentiful food than before the war.

Combat operations aren't that intense or common (only a few percent of the troops in country even fire weapons, and air ops are not anywhere near intense enough to account for that many deaths).

Of course, the Lancet study is a factor of ten or twelve higher than any other study that's been done, and nobody in Iraq has noticed the massive number of increased funerals (go read some Iraqi blogs, and be ready for some pissed-off Iraqis demanding to know where all of the dead people are, since they aren't seeing or hearing of them).

Finally, where are the cemetaries? Six hundred thousand dead in just three years? There should be a massive number of new cemetary plots, and nobody seems to be able to find them, either... (that silly "the press can't cover it" argument is pretty sad, since this is one of the most-covered wars in the history of the world - it's not the Cold War USSR).

Posted by: cirby | October 12, 2006 1:15 PM

Martyn,

As Charlie points out above AP itself doesn't report. It is a news feed of news from member organisations. Its initial purpose was to provide local newspaper groups with a means of sharing stories so that they could include news from outside the local area or country.

It was one of their member associations that reported Foley was a Democrat (as Fox News also appeared to do at least 3 times). Mind you most people who watch Fox News probably wouldn't vote Democrat even if the Republican Candidate was a known Murderer or a gay dead chimpanzee.

As with all content the quality of the output depends on the quality of the input. By the looks of it the idea of a News feed without a filter is still a strange thing for many people online to understand.

Posted by: Ben Thompson | October 12, 2006 1:25 PM

Cirby,

Where's you source that the Iraqi economy is growing. I've seen some pretty damning evidence that that is not the case in most of country (bar the Kurdish North).

Posted by: Ben Thompson | October 12, 2006 1:28 PM

Cirby, I'd love to live in your world. Really, I would. One in which combat operations aren't intense or common (there are, after all, only 500-600 attacks per week). It'd be lovely to be able to buy the panglossian reporting from the Pentagon that the rate of deaths in Baghdad is dropping -- but to get there, the Pentagon had to systematically exclude deaths due to bombs, mortars, rockets, and other mass attacks from their figures. (So if you're killed by a car bomb you don't count.)

The Iraqi economy shrank by over 50% from 2001 to 2003. Finding recent figures is hard work, but I'd be surprised if you could point to anything much more than a dead cat bounce in the past three years, driven by the high price of oil -- what oil they're still pumping, that is.

So Iraqis are better fed than they were back when we were systematically starving them before the war? Great: but starvation isn't what they're dying of.

Your assertion that combat operations aren't that intense or common because only a few percent of the troops in the country ever fire weapons is basically bullshit: in general, 90% of any military operation is the support tail, and guns are generally only fired by the combat troops tasked with being on the cutting edge. Air ops are irrelevant too -- policing by bomber didn't work for the RAF in the early 1920s in Mesopotamia, and it's not terribly effective in Baghdad today.

As for your cemetary argument, that's nonsense too. Iraq has a population of c. 24 million. You'd therefore expect a normal peacetime population turnover of about a third of a million per year. An increase of 70% over that isn't going to cause new cemetaries to be opened immediately -- your average cemetary runs for decades before anyone thinks about expanding it -- and indeed, huge cemetaries aren't inevitably associated with mass killing. (Go visit Auschwitz-Birkenau if you don't believe me.)

Posted by: Charlie Stross | October 12, 2006 1:42 PM

And Andrew G, I'm so glad I dont live in the same country as someone such as yourself, who considers civil war, with its associated heavy body count and immense amount of pain, as better than a dictatorship.

I rather hope I live in a country that would prefer civil war to oppression and tyrany.

Then again, I come from a country that thought the british monarchy - of all things - was an intollerable tyranny, and where half the country started a civil war over what they considered oppression from a rather weak central government.

As Patrick Henry said, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

Posted by: Andrew G. | October 12, 2006 1:58 PM

One thing to keep in mind is that the vast majority of the attacks are concentrated in a few regions -- Baghdad for instance. So it's entirely possible for the economy to be growing in large parts of Iraq, with a lower death rate than other parts where fighting is more intense.

Depending where you are looking you'd either get the impression that it's a horrible war or nothing major.

Posted by: Andrew G. | October 12, 2006 2:08 PM

Andrew G: which is worse, a dictatorship that kills a few thousand people a year, or a civil war that kills hundreds of thousands (and is usually ended when another strong man comes to power)?

Hint: civil war tends to create oppression and tyranny (and a pile of skulls along the way) rather than overthrowing it.

In the case of the American war of independence, I'd have to call Patrick Henry a hypocrite: that war he promoted probably prolonged the institution of slavery in the American south for some decades. It was very good for the rich North American landowners (who had had the previous war fought in their defense at the expense of the British taxpayers, and then rebelled when asked to pay their share of the bill), but lousy for everybody else.

PS: Iraq's population is mainly urban. Those "few regions" where the attacks are concentrated are actually where 70-80% of the population lives.

(Now you'll have to excuse me -- but I have a job to get back to, namely writing the next [almost entirely apolitical, you'll be pleased to know] SF novel.)

Posted by: Charlie Stross | October 12, 2006 2:09 PM

It does look like we have representatives from two parallel worlds arguing, doesn't it?

A position from World A: the US is still the occupying power, whatever fancy dress parties are going on. The Hague Regulations define occupation as territory under the control of a hostile army. The presence of a central government with no authority over the occupying troops does not magically change this; the Hague Regulations emphasize de facto control. There is no status of forces agreement (and no way to try US criminals under Iraqi law, and US law chooses not to cover contractors), the Iraqi army and (I believe) intelligence services still report to the US and not the Iraqi government. Amnesty phrases it as follows: "The sole criterion for deciding the applicability of the law on belligerent occupation is drawn from facts: the de facto effective control of territory by foreign armed forces coupled with the possibility to enforce their decisions, and the de facto absence of a national governmental authority in effective control."

In addition, the Iraqi prime minister is not the man who was elected for the job - the US pressured him out because they were unhappy with him. This is not an independent government.

World One sounds like a much nicer place - maybe you can send some advisors from your Bush One to our Bush A to make our Iraq as successful as yours.

Posted by: FungiFromYuggoth | October 12, 2006 2:11 PM

What's fascinating about Cirby is that despite attacking the Lancet study, he cites figures supporting his argument from god knows where and gathered god knows how?

How does he know the economy is growing strongly?
Who Knows?
How were the economic figures gathered?
Who knows, Cirby surely doesn't?
Was the methodology sound?
Cirby doesn't know, Cirby doesn't care.
How does Cirby know so much about what's going on in Iraq, despite the fact that most of it is now not covered by journalists (due to the extremely high level of violence, that he seems to missed, despite knowing all this other stuff about the place), and the bureacracy has broken down?
Hard to say. He doesn't tell us.

given how unserious his response is, and that his criticism of the Lancet report largely comes down to him not believing the number could be that high (has he read the report? I kind of doubt it), it seems pretty clear that its Cirby who needs the number to be lower - much lower. All the dead Iraqis could be laid out in a field, and still Cirby wouldn't believe it. He's not interested in facts, he will never change his mind. So don't take him any more seriously than you would somebody who argued the earth is flat, or that evolution is impossible.

Posted by: Cian | October 12, 2006 2:17 PM

You're right. It's better to keep out of political commentary.

Posted by: John | October 12, 2006 2:24 PM

Charlie, good points. I'm just trying to point out that it's pretty engrained into the American national mindset that wars of liberation and civil wars to remove oppression are good things and worth the cost. Probably 2/3 of the country don't really care how many Iraqis die, especially if they perceive them as doing it to each other. Most of the objects here come from poeople feeling that too many Americans have died.

If it wasn't so expensive, the majority of people would probably be in favor of invading Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and maybe Cuba. Luckily the US is pretty miserly when it comes to actually paying for wars (as you noted regarding the Revolution). We keep looking for cheap solutions that don't work, like embargos.

Posted by: Andrew G. | October 12, 2006 2:48 PM

When I posted that rant I was expecting at least one troll to show up.

(I'm disappointed that I only appear to rate a C- grade know-nothing, though.)

As for my motives in posting ...?

First I tried letting it all hang out. I got trolls, they drove my blood pressure up, and it was all quite stressfull.

So I put a lid on it.

But then I found that keeping quiet has its own costs: because self-censorship makes you complicit in the atrocity, even if only indirectly and on a very small scale, and that didn't do my blood pressure any good either.

If the trolls get too much for me this time, I'll just switch on Typekey authentication, force all posters on the discussions to register, and then ban the trolls. But Cirby is nowhere near that point ...

Posted by: Charlie Stross | October 12, 2006 2:51 PM

But then I found that keeping quiet has its own costs: because self-censorship makes you complicit in the atrocity, even if only indirectly and on a very small scale, and that didn't do my blood pressure any good either.

I know the feeling, some times you have to speak out. I too feel angry by the death toll in Iraq. My anger is directed at those who cause the deaths, the insurgents and terrorists and religious fanatics in Iraq. Iraq is only one of two things that Bush has done that I agree with. (The other being tax cuts).

Posted by: Andrew G. | October 12, 2006 2:56 PM

Andrew G: Yeah, you're right about the mindset that prefers fighting wars to leaving other people to wallow in tyranny.

Back during the cold war I was much more scared of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan than of the Soviets. The Soviets were rational: their country had been invaded by western powers four times in the preceding 200 years, and while they ran an unpleasant, dour, oppressive string of dictatorships, once Stalin was in his grave they were basically predictable -- their behavioural repertoire boiled down to (a) don't let the bastards invade the Rodina again, and (b) wait for True Communism to arrive and solve all the external problems.

Whereas Ronnie and Maggie were starry-eyed idealists who kept talking about freedom! and liberty! and the urgent need to destroy! the evil empire.

And I lived two miles from a large railway station and marshalling yard, three miles from one of the largest tank factories in Europe, and five miles away from a major motorway junction.

It tends to give you a pragmatic outlook on things ...

And that's part of why I was strongly against the Iraq invasion right from the start. Because, sure: Saddam was a complete bastard. But a quick look at the history of the region suggested that you need a complete bastard to hold Iraq together (at those times when they haven't had one, there's been civil war or terrorism instead), and one look at the troupe of clowns who were proposing the invasion suggested that these were the very last bunch of chancers you should ever go on a Magical Mystery Tour with. The proposed remedy was clearly going to be at least an order of magnitude worse than the disease -- even though I didn't expect it to be as badly mismanaged as it has turned out to be.

Posted by: Charlie Stross | October 12, 2006 2:57 PM

Charlie, science writer Malcolm Ritter (the author of the AP piece) is hardly a stooge for the Bush administration. I suggest you Google him and his works, expecialy his reporting on global warming. So yes, you do come off as biased, ill-informed and a little hysterical.

Now while wire services like AP rely on affiliates for their news feeds, you'll find that (outside of lonely Fox News and the WSJ) the American media is almost uniformly hostile to Bush and views the world through a liberal prism. Perhaps not the extreme off-the-edge-of-the-planet left wing view you seem to subscribe to, but biased enough to ensure that almost all AP news affiliates are safely anti-Bush.

All I know about the Lancet report is that the previous estimate was serously flawed with a too large of a margin of error to be meaningful, so I'l approach this report with suitable caution. So Ihave some questions concerning their methodology.

For example, was their sampling confined to the 4 provinces out of 18 that are actually experiencing violence? Did they then take these samples and extrapolate over all of Iraq including the peaceful and prospering Kurdish areas?

When polling the Iraqi people was there any overlap to the question of whether or not they knew of family members or neighbors that had died. In a tribal society like Iraq "families" can be very extensive and different Iraqis could have been referring to the same death. How was double count bias eliminated in the report (assuming it was)?

Were those questioned reliable? Certain groups (especially the Sunnis) have a vested interest in making the American presence in Iraq appear as bad as possible. Not so much because they are fighting oppresive imperialist overlords so much as they used to be (under Saddam) the oppressive imperialist overlords and would like to be top dog again.

Does the report break down how many were directly killed by American military action as opposed to terrorist attacks directed against Iraqi civilians by the likes of Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq. If so how do these numbers compare to the deliberate incineration of Japanese civilians in Tokyo fire bombings (100,000 dead in a single night raid) by American bombers or similar attacks by the RAF on German civlians in Dresden (60,000 dead)?

How does the Lancet death rate compare to the average annual death rate during Saddam's regime including judicial murder, genocide against the Kurds and other minorities, the war with Iran, etc. Some historical context would be helpful.

Posted by: daniel duffy | October 12, 2006 3:16 PM

...even though I didn't expect it to be as badly mismanaged as it has turned out to be.

Yeah, it has been badly mismanaged. Not on the miltary/combat side -- if anything that went better than anyone thought. The problem was at the start, when Bush & co. had no intention of engaging in "national building" and no plan for what to do after Saddam was toppled.

Without local allies ready to take over like in parts of Afghanistan, you really, really, need a plan to engage in nation building. Every successful war has had one.

Posted by: Andrew G. | October 12, 2006 3:19 PM

"Whereas Ronnie and Maggie were starry-eyed idealists who kept talking about freedom! and liberty! and the urgent need to destroy! the evil empire."

I seem to recall that Ronnie and Maggie actually did bring down the evil (what other adjective would you use to describe a regime that murdered 10s of millions) empire.

"But a quick look at the history of the region suggested that you need a complete bastard to hold Iraq "

Are you saying that Iraqis (and by extension Arabs) are brown savages incapable of understanding the white man's democracy? So why is it when a lefty says soething like this its "multi-culturalism" and when a conservative says such things it's "racism"?

Posted by: daniel duffy | October 12, 2006 3:21 PM

Thats the point Andrew G- you said half the country preferred not to be ruled by the British. What about the other half? (It was interesting to find out that many people who fought for the gvt were actually descendents of Clansmen who had hated the gvt)
To extend it further, what right has the USA got to decide for another country whether it will live in freedom or not?
And I look forwards to their invasion of Burma, to free its people from the military dictatorship currently in power.

And Andrew, the point to bear in mind is that the Lancet study also found that 31% of post invasion violent deaths were caused by the coalition. You can also blame the coalition for taking the lid off things in Iraq, and letting it get as much out of control as it has done.

Posted by: guthrie | October 12, 2006 3:26 PM

Cian, JB and Barry,

First, it has since come out that people at Lancet admitted to political timing. They do have an agenda but, in fairness, they're being clear about it. There's even a video of one of these guys giving a speech at a Stop The War Coalition rantfest.

I've also learned that the U.S. military has issued a report to Congress that includes some casualty figures. You may find a PDF on the web called "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq." The figures aren't parallel, though, so it's difficult to compare.

IAC, I still maintain that the Geneva Conventions do not seem to have this requirement. I'm not a lawyer, nor am I an expert, but I've done some digging, and no one has yet come up with a direct reference. (These treaties are all online.)

Cian asked, "what possible interest would they have in inflating it." Every group in Iraq that thinks they can get the upper hand with the withdrawal of U.S. forces does have a strong interest in increasing these numbers.

As for the idea that "anti-war" types can't be expected to protest against terrorists, that might have been a reasonable argument at one point but we've seen too many opportunities for true idealists be squandered.

I had linked to images of those marching in Manchester, claiming it's for peace but clearly taking the side that uses children as human shields (a practice that violates the laws of war by anyone's definition). They can say what they want about Israel but it's clear to me that this "peace" movement doesn't give a damn about the Geneva Conventions. The use of children as human shields should never be acceptable. Those protesters had a moral duty but said nothing.

Yes, I do think they could make a difference. Hezbollah has a $100M budget, and it's supported by Iran who also have sympathies for the Sadrites in Iraq (who do want us out). Iran has great need for more good PR. Iran is itself allied to the likes of Hugo Chavez, who could certainly say something if he cared to.

No, that wouldn't directly stop the violent criminals in Iraq, pressuring the Sadrites could help bring some order that would change that environment. You could even say I'm wrong about whether it would help but you can't say they've tried.

One of the recurring arguments against U.S. policy is that it had allied itself with despots during the Cold War. Well, I'm making the same point here about the other side. I don't expect miracles but I do think people speaking out is a good first step.

You don't have to accept any of this. Just understand that the moral high ground has a very tough terrain.

Posted by: Randy Beck | October 12, 2006 3:38 PM

And Andrew, the point to bear in mind is that the Lancet study also found that 31% of post invasion violent deaths were caused by the coalition. You can also blame the coalition for taking the lid off things in Iraq, and letting it get as much out of control as it has done.

I have a certain ammount of faith in my government and military that they aren't conducting large scale killings of innocent civilians. Most of those are insurgents, or unavoidable casualties from fighting insurgents.

Posted by: Andrew G. | October 12, 2006 4:23 PM

Randy: I do not adhere to the doctrine that the enemies of my enemies are my friends. I do not support the Iranian government or Hezbollah, just because I despise the actions of the US administration. You're quite right that the moral high ground has rough terrain: but if you want to claim that terrain, a good starting point is to denounce violence everywhere, and to renounce it yourself except in strict self-defense. (Which the invasion of Iraq most certainly wasn't.)

You might want to remember that I'm not American, nor do I consider the USA to be a shining city on a hill or a beacon of liberty; it's just another goddamn meddling superpower, with no intrinsic claim to superiority other than that which it earns. And right now, your government is doing a really shitty job of convincing me it's superior to, say, that of Leonid Brezhnev.

Andrew G: I believe (for the reasons set out above) that your confidence in your government is very likely misplaced. (But then, the US military has a history of covering up its massacres of civilians very effectively, most of the time. Aided by a complaisant media environment in which only American deaths count.)

Posted by: Charlie Stross | October 12, 2006 4:29 PM

Andrew G: I believe (for the reasons set out above) that your confidence in your government is very likely misplaced. (But then, the US military has a history of covering up its massacres of civilians very effectively, most of the time. Aided by a complaisant media environment in which only American deaths count.)

True, we have had our nasty massacres from time to time. I think every great power has at some point.

But looking at the study it seems that there's a 5x-8x difference in the number of women to the number of men killed, and that most of the casualties are clustered in the 15-44 age group. This doesn't seem to be an indication of massacres of civilian populations to me, but rather combat deaths.

The study's results seem to confirm my belief that there is a three+ sided civil war going on in Iraq. Looking at the map, the highest death rates are clustered in the middle of the country, in the American zone -- the region where most of the Sunnis live. They're the ones who have the most to loose in the new government -- an unpopular minority with few resources in their territory.

Posted by: Andrew G. | October 12, 2006 4:48 PM

Andrew, can you explain to me how the increased deaths from dysentery, cholera, and malnutrition in Iraq are unavoidable casualties from fighting insurgents? It's easy to find references, just Google for "dysentery Iraq", "malnutrition Iraq", etc.

Also, I'm not really clear on how a civil war between three authoritarian groups is superior to a dictatorship. I don't think the Freedom Sexy party is likely to come out on top here.

Posted by: FungiFromYuggoth | October 12, 2006 4:49 PM

Andrew, can you explain to me how the increased deaths from dysentery, cholera, and malnutrition in Iraq are unavoidable casualties from fighting insurgents? It's easy to find references, just Google for "dysentery Iraq", "malnutrition Iraq", etc.

I believe the 31% mentioned in the study as being caused by the Coalition Forces refer only to violent deaths, not deaths in general. Numbers-wise they're saying that about 601,000 people died of violence caused by the war, while 'only' 54,000 more than usual died of other causes.

So, the Coalition caused about 200,000 deaths through violence, and the insurgents caused about 400,000. They don't assign blame for the 54,000 though I tend to think the blame lies squarely on the heads of the insurgents who sabotage efforts to rebuild the country.

Also, I'm not really clear on how a civil war between three authoritarian groups is superior to a dictatorship. I don't think the Freedom Sexy party is likely to come out on top here.

Sadly, you're probably right. Though I'd like a Whiskey, Freedom, & Sexy Party here in the US too. :)

All in all, I think the Kurds probably have a good chance of creating a democratic government. With the threat of Turkey and the Arab Iraqis as external threats they should have enough interal cohesion to avoid a Kurdish civil war between the two main factions.

Posted by: Andrew G. | October 12, 2006 4:58 PM

Whoops, ignore that first para - I lost the plot that we were just talking about deaths by coalition fire, not all deaths.

Remember that Haditha was accepted as "unavoidable casualties" for a while, and probably would continue to be if there had not been video evidence to the contrary. There are also quite a number of accidental killings at traffic stops, and I question whether those were unavoidable.

Even granting the 31% as unavoidable, what about the rest?

Posted by: FungiFromYuggoth | October 12, 2006 4:59 PM

For those craving more analysis on the methodology of The Lancet's report but too lazy to read the original .pdf, The Guardian (yes, right-wingers can wave their special Liberal Elite Media flags if it makes them feel better) has an article getting into it in at least a little more detail.
A brief excerpt:

There was a sample of 12,801 individuals in 1,849 households, in 47 geographical locations. That is a big sample, not a small one. The opinion polls from Mori and such which measure political support use a sample size of about 2,000 individuals, and they have a margin of error of +/- 3%. [...] I have searched assiduously for the last two years, with the assistance of a lot of partisans of the Iraq war who have tried to pick holes in the study, and not found any.

Posted by: Canis | October 12, 2006 4:59 PM

Randy,
The timing may be motivated by the elections, but so what? If the figures are accurate (and you've failed to show that they're not), then people should know about them before they vote. Whether they choose to act on them is their business. To argue anything else is to demonstrate a profound contempt for democracy.

I glanced through the document you mentioned, but couldn't find any figures on casualties (there were figures on attacks on infrastructure and what I presume were attacks on US soldiers).

Cian asked, "what possible interest would they have in inflating it." Every group in Iraq that thinks they can get the upper hand with the withdrawal of U.S. forces does have a strong interest in increasing these numbers.

The Lancet figures show that a majority of people were killed by either "insurgents", or criminals. Again, if the figures were faked by Al-Sadr, why would they produce figures that suggested they had killed as many as the Americans?

"As for the idea that "anti-war" types can't be expected to protest against terrorists, that might have been a reasonable argument at one point but we've seen too many opportunities for true idealists be squandered."

No, I asked what was the point of marching in the West to demand a civil war? What measurable outcome could it possible achieve? Would you seriously argue that either side in the civil war would take any notice? That they care what people in London, or New York, think? This is a silly argument.

"Pressuring the Sadrites could help bring some order that would change that environment. You could even say I'm wrong about whether it would help but you can't say they've tried."

Again, please explain how marching against the Sadrists in the west would put any pressure on them? What would this achieve? How would it work?

Cian

Posted by: Cian | October 12, 2006 5:05 PM

Charlie,

I wasn't including you as a member of that group in Manchester. Rather, I was making the point that the far left is taking sides. They clearly do support Hezbollah.

If there is a position for the center-left, it should be to call their acquaintances in the far left and ask them to defend their positions. I'm not asking for anything more than that. I don't even expect every blogger to confront this. I'm just noticing the volume is pretty low, and I can't help but think that our enemies have noticed this, too.

I agree on renouncing violence among rivals, even hated ones. It's doubtful that we can ever do the same with madmen.

I'm well aware of your thoughts on U.S. policy, and I don't begrudge you for having them. While I understand your wanting to away from politics, I agree with others who think it's good for you to be up front about your opinions. You're not the author of children's books. It would almost be two-faced for you to keep silent.

Posted by: Randy Beck | October 12, 2006 5:11 PM

To Michael Brazier:

The cases of Northern Ireland during the conflict and Iraq are not comparable.

Even at its very worst, in the early 1970s, the situation in Northern Ireland did not begin to resemble the horror that is unfolding in Iraq today.

And there certainly never occurred in Northern Ireland the kind of breakdown of civil order that would impede the gathering of accurate mortality records, nor their reporting by the media.

Therefore the answer to your question 'What fraction of violent deaths due to "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland were reported at the time, and thus would have appeared in an "Ireland Body Count", compared to the true total?' is that the true total of dead in the NI conflict (3,500) is equivalent to the figures reported at the time.

There's even a book on the subject, Lost Lives, which lists, in detail, every single death that occurred as a result of the Northern Ireland conflict.

That you would introduce an inappropriate comparison with Northern Ireland into this debate indicates that you know very little about the present unpleasantness in Iraq: you definitely know nothing at all about Northern Ireland.

Posted by: D.O'Kane | October 12, 2006 5:20 PM

Cian,

"The timing may be motivated by the elections, but so what?"

Nothing wrong with that. I just think it makes this more partisan.

I haven't read the full report yet. I don't know if the figures are accurate, but my position (and probably yours) would be the same regardless. Frankly, the deaths of 1/10th that many should be troubling when there are a lot of innocents in that number. But it could affect my position only if I could believe an Iraqi iron hand could impose order in a way that didn't come along with a greater threat.

"Again, if the figures were faked by Al-Sadr, why would they produce figures that suggested they had killed as many as the Americans?"

I have no doubt that, if faked, they'd want it to be believable. I'll grant that it's a good question whether the enemies we have could be that astute.

"No, I asked what was the point of marching in the West to demand a civil war? What measurable outcome could it possible achieve? Would you seriously argue that either side in the civil war would take any notice? That they care what people in London, or New York, think? This is a silly argument."

Take a look at the types of people demonstrating now. Do you think George W. Bush cares what they think? Those photos come from a right-wing website. If they thought it could dissuade Bush, it might even have had the opposite effect. It's somewhat affirming.

Wouldn't you take comfort if the far-right (most of whom actually agree with you, BTW) were to demonstrate against your position?

Posted by: Randy Beck | October 12, 2006 5:44 PM

Cian,

Sorry but I realize I didn't make that last point clearly -- even by the standards of someone who's trying to work on several things at the same time.

My contention is that they do care. Even an axis of evil needs allies.

It makes a difference to whoever is funding them. It makes a difference in recruiting. It makes a difference in whether they think they'll be recognized as a legitimate government after they gain power. And it makes a big difference in whether they can convince their followers that they can hold out long enough for victory. To them, such silence is a gift.

Posted by: Randy Beck | October 12, 2006 6:11 PM

The number of Iraqi dead claimed by the Lancet report (655,000) exceeds the total German civilian deaths during five years (and 955,044 tons) of WWII bombing.

From The NY Times:

Robert Blendon, director of the Harvard Program on Public Opinion and Health and Social Policy, said interviewing urban dwellers chosen at random was ?the best of what you can expect in a war zone.? But he said the number of deaths in the families interviewed ? 547 in the post-invasion period versus 82 in a similar period before the invasion ? was too few to extrapolate up to more than 600,000 deaths across the country. Donald Berry, chairman of biostatistics at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, was even more troubled by the study, which he said had ?a tone of accuracy that?s just inappropriate.?

Lancet's numbers are BS, pure and simple.

Posted by: daniel duffy | October 12, 2006 6:31 PM

The numbers of dead in the Rwandan genocide twelve years ago exceeded both the numbers report in the Lancet study and the numbers killed in Germany by allied bombing from 1939 - 1945.

This was achieved largely with very simple technology - machetes.

The Iraqi factions are rather better armed. So I don't think a comparison with the dead in Germany six decades ago is adequate for the purposes of undermining the Lancet reports credibility.

Posted by: D.O'Kane | October 12, 2006 6:36 PM

Randy: f there is a position for the center-left, it should be to call their acquaintances in the far left and ask them to defend their positions. I'm not asking for anything more than that.

Sure, fine: "stop focussing on your own concerns and beat my enemies up for me instead. Otherwise I will have to assume that you are an [insert epithet here]."

Personally, I think you should start by denouncing the evils of corporate-owned sweatshops and demanding the compulsory nationalization of the means of production. After all, it's the only way to prove that you're not in bed with the neo-nazis, isn't it?

(Sorry, but I am not going to wear that hat: it is pointy and has a big "D" on the side.)

Posted by: Charlie Stross | October 12, 2006 6:48 PM

Charlie,

"and beat my enemies up for me instead"

Did I say "instead"? I wouldn't even ask for fifty-fifty.

In fact, I didn't even ask for that. I said, "ask them to defend their positions". You were, after all, asking us to defend ours.

Posted by: Randy Beck | October 12, 2006 7:10 PM

"Nothing wrong with that. I just think it makes this more partisan."

Different argument.
For the 2004 report, the editor of the Lancet (who did not write, or review, the report) stated that he persuaded the reviewers to get their reviews back to him as soon as possible (reviews usually take several months - mainly because academics are very busy, and so things get put off), due to the importance of the findings. He also stated that he felt it was important that if possible (reviews withstanding), the report should be published before the US elections.

However, to suggest that the writers of the 2006 report could organise a study of this size (and it is a massive sample size), analyse the data aiming to publish it through the peer review process in order to get it published one month before the election simply demonstrates your ignorance of how academic research is published.

An article is written by academics and submitted to the journal (the editor does not commission articles). The editorial board then find reviewers with relevant experience of the methodology/research area to review it. In this case four people. If, and most articles submitted to the Lancet are rejected, it makes it through this process it will then be rewritten to address the concerns of the reviewers and finally published. This process can easily take a year - I know people for whom it has taken two years.

You're claiming that the authors of this report (who are at one of the world's most prestigious medical schools, and who have excellent reputations for the quality of the work), the reviewers (who will be of the same standard) and the editorial board of the Lancet (which will include other eminant researchers, with reputations to lose) - would all be that biased is simply ludicrous. The Lancet is not the New Republic/Nation/NYT/Washington Times.

"But it could affect my position only if I could believe an Iraqi iron hand could impose order in a way that didn't come along with a greater threat."

So essentially you're saying that it doesn't matter how many people die, your opinion will remain the same. And the argument, as I see it, is that these are people who wouldn't have died if we hadn't invaded. At the very least we owe them a massive apology.

"I have no doubt that, if faked, [Al-Sadr] want it to be believable. I'll grant that it's a good question whether the enemies we have could be that astute."

No, I asked why would Al-Sadr fake data that made them look as bad as the US occupation forces? As a hypothesis this is ludicrous. I'm trying to get you to see how silly your suggestion was.

I find the idea that this data is faked, btw, utterly ludicrous. The interviewers only asked for death certificates after they interviewed people about deaths. The idea that Al-Sadr could have anticipated the interviews, and have prepared so thoroughly is a pretty wild conspiracy theory.

"Take a look at the types of people demonstrating now. Do you think George W. Bush cares what they think?"

Well in Britain, at least, I don't think (for the most pat) they were protesting to change Bush's mind. The idea is to try and change the population's mind so, come an election, things might change. And to make it absolutely clear that the government was doing this in their name.

"Those photos come from a right-wing website."

Um, well thanks for that.

"Wouldn't you take comfort if the far-right (most of whom actually agree with you, BTW) were to demonstrate against your position?"

The far right agree with me about what? Iraq? Not in Britain they don't. If you're talking about Israel (and I haven't actually stated my own position), the far right in Britain are very supportive of Israel (they hate Arabs more than they hate Jews, and they don't hate Jews if they live in Israel).

Posted by: cian | October 12, 2006 7:36 PM

DOK, you miss the point. Lancet's figure comes to about 500 civilian deaths per day since boots hit sand in 2003. We have imbedded correspondents over there reporting on the violence. There is on-going documentation of what is going on there, daily reports. And the numbers have spoken over time, then this report comes up with numbers off the charts of anything witnessed by imbedded journalists or even foreign correspondents. Has even Al Jazeera been reporting 500 civilian casualties a day?

Sorry, but the Lancet numbers are BS - politically motivated BS that real staticians are shooting down.

Posted by: daniel duffy | October 12, 2006 8:01 PM

D. O'Kane: If you read the blogs written by Iraqis, or by people residing in Iraq, you will not find any trace of a breakdown of civil order, as would be necessary to impede the collection of mortality records. What you do find is a situation broadly similar to that of Northern Ireland at its worst: namely, a functional civil society under assault from a variety of sectarian thugs, and defended (not well) by an army from a foreign country. Northern Ireland's mortality records were accurate during the Troubles; why would Iraq's mortality records now be suspect? The Lancet study is the only evidence presented so far that civil order in Iraq has broken down. Assuming the breakdown, and citing it as evidence for the Lancet study, is therefore circular reasoning.

The possible explanations for the factor-of-12 discrepancy between the reported mortality figures from Iraq and the Lancet study's estimate are: 1) civil order has disappeared in Iraq; or 2) the murderers of Iraqis are hiding most of the bodies so well that only 1 out of 12 of them have been discovered; or 3) the US government, the Iraq government, and the Western press are all colluding to conceal the true death toll; or 4) the Lancet study is in error, due to mistakes in calculation or conception. Of these, 2) and 3) are on a level with stories of abductions by aliens. 1) is contradicted by those currently in Iraq, as I mentioned before. Therefore I vote for 4) -- the more so because I know enough about statistical modeling to know how easy it is to get it wrong.

Posted by: Michael Brazier | October 12, 2006 8:13 PM

Cian,

I could accept that the work is high quality, and that I'm wrong about a lot of things, but I'll bicker on this point:

"You're claiming that the authors of this report (who are at one of the world's most prestigious medical schools, and who have excellent reputations for the quality of the work), the reviewers (who will be of the same standard) and the editorial board of the Lancet (which will include other eminant researchers, with reputations to lose) - would all be that biased is simply ludicrous. The Lancet is not the New Republic/Nation/NYT/Washington Times."

I had said that I consider 1/10th that many deaths to be troubling when it contains so many innocents. Would I lie if I believed it could bring some relief on that scale? Yes, I would. I think it would be wrong not to.

Please do not assume that I'm accusing Lancet of lying in that. (I understand the long-term importance of maintaining standards.) I'm merely wondering whether they're humanly capable of holding the same standards when someone gives them what they're looking for.

"So essentially you're saying that it doesn't matter how many people die, your opinion will remain the same. And the argument, as I see it, is that these are people who wouldn't have died if we hadn't invaded."

No, but I understand that you may hear others say that. I have a different opinion about the rationale for the war. What I'm saying is that giving in to the insurgents would have more perilous consequences.

"No, I asked why would Al-Sadr fake data that made them look as bad as the US occupation forces? As a hypothesis this is ludicrous. I'm trying to get you to see how silly your suggestion was."

A higher death toll only makes each side look like victims, and that's especially important for the worst of the insurgents. Shia deaths are attributed to Sunni, and Sunni to Shia.

After Dresden, German propagandists felt free to exaggerate the bombings' body counts.

"I find the idea that this data is faked, btw, utterly ludicrous. The interviewers only asked for death certificates after they interviewed people about deaths. The idea that Al-Sadr could have anticipated the interviews, and have prepared so thoroughly is a pretty wild conspiracy theory."

I'll concede that makes sense. There could be some steering for the sampling, but I'm not going to hang my hat on that unless it makes sense after I've read more of the report.

"Well in Britain, at least, I don't think (for the most pat) they were protesting to change Bush's mind. The idea is to try and change the population's mind so, come an election, things might change. And to make it absolutely clear that the government was doing this in their name."

That's a fair point as long as the guys with Hezbollah banners and t-shirts understand that Hezbollah is doing things in their name.

"The far right agree with me about what? Iraq? Not in Britain they don't. If you're talking about Israel (and I haven't actually stated my own position), the far right in Britain are very supportive of Israel (they hate Arabs more than they hate Jews, and they don't hate Jews if they live in Israel)."

I don't know enough about the far right in Britain.

In the U.S., the isolationist-right opposed the war, and the extreme-right (such as David Duke) is even more vehemently against it. They see this as a war for Israel. Duke is pretty popular in some Arab countries.

Posted by: Randy Beck | October 12, 2006 8:43 PM

Posted by: daniel duffy: "DOK, you miss the point. Lancet's figure comes to about 500 civilian deaths per day since boots hit sand in 2003. We have imbedded correspondents over there reporting on the violence. There is on-going documentation of what is going on there, daily reports. And the numbers have spoken over time, then this report comes up with numbers off the charts of anything witnessed by imbedded journalists or even foreign correspondents. Has even Al Jazeera been reporting 500 civilian casualties a day?"

First, please read the report - it covers deaths from all causes, not just violence.

Second:
http://www.nytimes.com/glogin?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/21/world/middleeast/21iraq.html&OQ=_rQ3D1Q26exQ3D1159588800Q26enQ3D450b0f4670d95964Q26eiQ3D5087Q250A&OP=4f8965acQ2FqnKwqQ3FgG31gghQ24qQ24eeQ5EqeQ2BqQ24Q3Bqng17Q3FqQ7CQ5DQ3FQ3F7KKP3hqQ24Q3BQ5D1P,tQ60hQ7C7
"A U.N. report says 5,106 people in Baghdad died violent deaths during July and August, far higher than figures from the city’s morgue."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MAC145456.htm
"Partial statistics compiled by the Health Ministry and issued by the Interior Ministry put civilian deaths last month at 1,089..." (for Sep alone)

and so on - do the reading yourself.

Think about how many reports of 'XX' people killed, or 'XX' bodies found. That's generally what we hear, because things are at the point where 'X' (single-digit deaths) are no longer newsworthy. And that's pretty much from just Baghdad, because reporting from Iraq is rather hard, and frequently lethal.

Posted by: Barry | October 13, 2006 2:37 AM

Something to consider: The study states that their investigators asked for death certificates for 545 deaths, and that certificates were produced for 501 of these. Iraq Body Count gives a maximum of confirmed violent deaths due to the occupation of 48,693 at the time I write; and the low end of the study's estimated violent deaths due to the occupation is 426,369. Therefore, if we accept that estimate, the probability that a death certificate has been issued for any given violent death in Iraq is ~11%. The question is: what is the probability, accepting the estimate, that investigators asking for certification of 545 deaths would find it for more than 500 of them?

You can calculate this with the binomial distribution, and I suggest that you do: with a probability of success in one try of 11%, the probability of over 500 successes in 545 tries is less than 10 to the -14th power. The investigators were astoundingly lucky, to find 501 death certificates for 545 deaths -- or, of course, the study's estimate is wrong. I trust you can all see that there are strong, non-partisan reasons to reject the estimate?

Posted by: Michael Brazier | October 13, 2006 6:32 AM

"Therefore, if we accept that estimate, the probability that a death certificate has been issued for any given violent death in Iraq is ~11%"

Except that it isn't, because they're completely different measurements. Body Count is a list of 'unarguable' deaths by direct military misadventure witnessed by two or more independent sources, and the Lancet report is an estimate of total deaths from all causes witnessed by friends and family.

As a general rule of thumb: "Any probab