I have to start with a correction to an earlier post: To my knowledge, Kurdish areas were also subject to sanctions but not entirely subject to Saddam’s control. I still find the presumption that infant mortality dropped nearly 4 times in 3 or 4 years highly questionable.

Now: It is absolutely likely that a few deaths could have dramatically changed the results. Why? All of the data depends on 46 pre-war deaths in 14.6 months versus 89 (or 142 if we count Falluja) “post-invasion” deaths in 17.8 months. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that even a difference of 10 deaths in either period would give us very different results.

You write:

“the average household size in the survey was 8 and the survey didn’t count households in which everyone was dead (obviously).

Honestly, I’m not sure it is so obvious. Here is what the study says:

“At the end of interviewing every 30 household cluster, one or two households were asked if in the area of the cluster there were any entire families that had died or most of a family had died and survivors were now living elsewhere. We did this to explore the liklihood that families with many deaths were now unlikely to be found and interviewed, creating a survivor bias among those interviewed.”

It seems to me that they did try to take that factor into account dsquared. I don’t think I’ve misinterpreted the study either. Let me know if you disagree and why.

—Ray D.

Well no, but that’s because I believe that there were a lot of fatalities due to bombing and acts of terror after the war. It’s not true that “just one or two” households could have made a major difference to the results, by the way; excluding the violent deaths in the Fallujah cluster, you’re going from 36 deaths to 60 deaths (on an annualised basis, multiplying the prewar deaths by 12/14 and the postwar deaths by 12/18). That’s 24 deaths; the average household size in the survey was 8 and the survey didn’t count households in which everyone was dead (obviously).

You question how likely it is that one of the families in the survey could be impacted disproportionately by death or a lack thereof through an event like a bombing, etc. Well, there were 988 households surveyed. Do you find it unlikely that even one or two of them might have been unusually hard hit by a bombing or act of terror during or after the war? Again, if even just one or two families was especially hard-hit, it would have dramatically impacted the data. That is why I am saying the sample group is too small and also why I am saying all of the conclusions built on this data are like a house built on quicksand.

—Ray D.

Just wanted to address one more point you made:

“No. Firstly the statement “mainly by the coalition” does not appear in the Lancet study in that form and does not accurately summarise its findings.”

Well, here is what the study itself says, I will let the readers decide:

“Interpretation Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths.”

I am baffled how the study authors can make that statement if they exclude the Falluja data. I have to believe that they are counting the Falluja data in making this statement. Otherwise, the data does not support saying that.

This points out another problem with the study, the inclusion/exclusion of the Falluja data which is not always clear.

—Ray D.

I found this point interesting:

“The UNICEF study for 1999 was based on fieldwork carried out in 1998. It therefore does not cover the oil-for-food period under which sanctions were relaxed. Oil-for-food had a very significant effect on infant malnutrition, and infant malnutrition is closely correlated with infant mortality.”

Even assuming that there was a significant improvement in nutrition due to oil-for-food, it would still be very difficult to argue that the rate in areas under Saddam dropped from an estimated 108 to 29. Even in autonomous Kurdish areas of Iraq not affected by sanctions or Saddam, the infant mortality rate was recorded to be 59 per 1000 livebirths for 1994 to 1999, more than double the figure the Lancet study gives us for all of Iraq in 2002.

Anyway dsquared, if the infant mortality number is an indicator of the accuracy of this study, then I think you are in a lot of trouble…

“The study gives its reasons why it did not request death certificates in every case; it requested two death certificates per cluster (except, obviously, in those clusters with no deaths) and you give no reason to believe that this wasn’t a satisfactory way to deal with the problem.”

With all due respect dsquared, I think it is a problem, because we are clearly relying on a lot of data that is unproven and undocumented. If even just a few people made up deaths or failed to report them, the results would have been changed dramatically due to the small number of deaths actually reported (46 vs 89/142).

BTW, for the record, I would like to make a correction to my first post above, actually the study recorded a total of 188 deaths (if we count the Falluja data), not 231. I added 142 and 89 when I should have added 142 and 46. Just want to be clear on that. The original point I made remains though.

In terms of your other points, I don’t think they really challenge my arguments.

—Ray D.

If even just one or two of the surveyed families was the unfortunate victim of a particularly violent bombing incident or terror attack, the entire survey could be way off base and fatally skewed.

Yes, but how likely is this? If “particularly violent bombing incidents” were rare, then it is very unlikely that this would bias the results. On the other hand, if “particularly violent bombing incidents” were common, then the number of deaths is likely to be high. This is, to be frank, why random sampling works, and the fact that you don’t seem to understand this suggests that you’re not really familiar with your subject matter. The sample isn’t “ridiculously small”; they sampled 7800 individuals in 33 clusters. If you find 33 deaths in your sample when you only expected to find 19, then that’s a significant result.

Nevertheless, Ray has clearly done some work here and I respect that; it’s a good faith critique and much better than most. Answering those points that I consider to be reasonably new:

[On the IBC versus Lancet theme ...]

That would mean, if we believe the Lancet study’s estimate of 100,000 “post invasion” deaths to be true, that over 80,000 Iraqi deaths, caused “mainly by the coalition” have gone completely unnoticed by the international media, Iraqi authorities and NGOs

No. Firstly the statement “mainly by the coalition” does not appear in the Lancet study in that form and does not accurately summarise its findings. But more importantly, IBC has a tight definition of what it is going to add to its count (a major source of bias is that when IBC gets a news report of “a family” being killed, it increments the counter by 4 to be conservative, despite the fact that an average nonextended family in Iraq is more like 6). IBC also does not make anything like the sweeping claims you make on its behalf about the comprehensiveness of its coverage. IBC does not endorse the use of its number as a stick to beat the Lancet survey.

[on infant mortality]

Secondly, a UNICEF study conducted in Iraq for the period from 1994 to 1999 came up with an infant mortality figure of 108 per 1000 livebirths. That would mean if the UNICEF numbers are accurate, the infant mortality rate would have had to drop by over three-and-a-half times within 3 years in an Iraq under sanctions and Hussein’s rule.

The UNICEF study for 1999 was based on fieldwork carried out in 1998. It therefore does not cover the oil-for-food period under which sanctions were relaxed. Oil-for-food had a very significant effect on infant malnutrition, and infant malnutrition is closely correlated with infant mortality.

Some particularly outspoken critics of the Iraq war

The Lancet team are not responsible for what “particularly outspoken critics of the Iraq war” say; they presented the data they had.

[on cluster selection; this is the only genuinely new critique I have seen]

Now, how, exactly, is that consistent? If the study leaders were as concerned about safety as they claim they were, why would they allow their investigators to drive right into Falluja at a time like that? What could have possibly been their motivation? Does that not seem just the slightest bit contradictory? All things considered, one has to wonder about the logic that went into selecting the other 32 clusters chosen as well.

The clusters were selected randomly, so “logic” does not enter into it. Since Fallujah is representative of other high-violence areas of Iraq, it would not have been honest to simply pretend that it was not there when the random sampler selected a cluster there. The survey team minimised their risks by not also sampling Najaf, Samarra and Ramadi.

moving on:

And how can we say that the 14.6 months preceding the war are an accurate reflection/representation of Saddam Hussein’s 24 year regime and the violence wrought by that regime over the years?

This is clearly not a critique of the study itself; if you want to argue this separate point it would be best to do so outside the context of the Lancet study.

That would indicate that, unless all 231 deaths in fact occurred in just 78 households, that the study did not even request proof of death in many cases of reported death.

The study gives its reasons why it did not request death certificates in every case; it requested two death certificates per cluster (except, obviously, in those clusters with no deaths) and you give no reason to believe that this wasn’t a satisfactory way to deal with the problem.

Well, with all of the argument surrounding it, I decided to have a look at the Lancet Study myself. Here is what I concluded after reading it:

The Lancet Study is based on a survey conducted in 33 “clusters” throughout Iraq in which 988 households containing 7868 residents served as the basis for the study’s findings. Each cluster contained 30 households and an average of 238.4 residents. One of the clusters just happened to end up in Falluja, where an overwhelmingly disproportionate number of deaths had occurred. For that reason it was not considered in the calculations that lead to the famous 100,000 figure because, according to the authors, “the Falluja cluster is an obvious outlier and might not belong with the others.”

So for its findings the study relied on 32 clusters with (if we take the averages) 960 households and around 7630 residents. In these 32 clusters, 46 deaths were reported in a 14.6 month (or 442 day) period from January 1, 2002 to March 18, 2003 leading up to the war, which yields an average of 3.15 deaths per month. This period is referred to as the “pre-invasion” period by the study’s authors. In the same clusters, 89 deaths (21 of which were violent) were reported in the 17.8 month (or 548 day) period from March 19, 2003 to September 16, 2004, which yields an average of 5 deaths per month. This period, which includes the major combat operations phase of the Iraq conflict, is referred to as the “post-invasion” period by the study’s authors.

The numbers above serve as the fundamental basis for the Lancet Study’s estimate of “100,000 excess deaths” in Iraq, which the study claims were mainly attributable “to coalition forces.” Here is essentially how they used the numbers they provided to get that result:

First, because the two periods under consideration are different (14.6 months or “110,538 person-months of residency” versus 17.8 months or “138,439 person months of residency”), one has to adjust for time. One of the ways this can be done is by simply taking the average number of recorded deaths per month “pre-invasion” (3.15) and multiplying it by 17.8 months. That gives us right about 56 deaths. Remember for the “post-invasion” period, we had 89 deaths in 17.8 months. So now, after adjusting for time, we still have 33 “additional” deaths (89 minus 56) in the “post-invasion” period in our 32 clusters.

You may be scratching your head at this point and wondering…how did they get 100,000+ “additional” Iraqi deaths from 33? Well, this is how:

First you take the estimated population of Iraq: The survey uses 24.4 million. You divide the total population of Iraq by the overall number of people included in the 32 clusters surveyed (7630) for a result of 3198. Then you take your 33 “additional” deaths and multiply them by 3198…voila…there you have your 100,000+ “additional” Iraqi deaths. Of course there are numerous different ways one can plug in the numbers that will lead to slight variations, but the end result will always be right around 100,000.

For the record, I attempted to get a hold of the exact methods and computations carried out to reach the 98,000 figure cited by the study for the 32 clusters that served as the basis for the study’s 100,000 estimate from the study’s leader, L. Roberts. His reply:

“Dear Ray,

I am sorry, but I have 67 new e-mails today and I cannot get into this, especially the 98,000 since it was based on 32 regression lines with a boot-strapped confidence interval.”

The study used then another equation to calculate its “confidence interval” of 8,000 to 194,000 “additional” deaths.

That’s right ladies and gentleman, this entire study is based on a few dozen deaths. To be more precise the entire study and its 100,000 “additional” death estimate is based on 89 deaths in a 17.8 month period during and after the war versus 46 deaths in a 14.6 month period before the war in a 32 cluster sample group. In other words, if even one cluster was disproportionately affected by death (or a lack thereof) either before, during or after the war, the results of the study would be dramatically off base. If even just a few deaths were incorrectly recorded or invented, it also would have dramatically changed the study’s results. If even just one or two of the surveyed families was the unfortunate victim of a particularly violent bombing incident or terror attack, the entire survey could be way off base and fatally skewed. In fact, a change of just 10 deaths for any reason would have the effect of throwing this survey off by around plus or minus 30,000 deaths. The conclusions built on this data are comparable to houses built on quicksand because all of the results and assumptions rely on a sample group that is simply too small to give us any reliable or relevant data whatsoever.

How could anyone claim that this sample group was large enough to be taken seriously when debating an issue of such enormous gravity? How could anyone rely on a survey that makes such heavy claims of 100,000 “additional” dead in Iraq when it is based on a difference of around 33 deaths (time adjusted)? This is explainable only if we consider the worldview and ideology of those who have exhibited a burning desire to believe the results, whether true or not.

IBC vs. Lancet

The Iraqi Body Count is another left-leaning project aimed at recording the number of deaths in Iraq during and after major combat operations. Unlike the Lancet study, which relied on a mathematical estimate derived from a small sample group, the Iraqi Body Count is dependent primarily on the media for its casualty tally, but has also included information from the Iraqi government and in a few cases from NGOs.

Even assuming that all of the media sources and all of the other data sources the IBC relies upon are trustworthy and reliable (they include Al-Jazeera), the maximum casualty count according to the site is just over 19,500. That would mean, if we believe the Lancet study’s estimate of 100,000 “post invasion” deaths to be true, that over 80,000 Iraqi deaths, caused “mainly by the coalition” have gone completely unnoticed by the international media, Iraqi authorities and NGOs. That is over four-fifths or more than 80% of the deaths the Lancet study estimates have occurred.

Infant Mortality and the Lancet Study

The study’s “pre-invasion” infant mortality rate was also derived by combining a tiny sample group with a flawed assumption. Here again, the study relies on a minute number of actual recorded infant deaths to reach its reported “pre-invasion” infant mortality rate of 29 deaths per every 1000 livebirths for all Iraq. To be more precise, 8 actual infant deaths serve as the basis for this statistic that is purported to accurately reflect the infant mortality rate in a nation of over 24 million.

Here is how the authors came up with the figure: The study recorded 275 births and 8 infant deaths in the 14.6 months before the war. Using those figures, the authors came up with the 29 infant deaths per 1000 live births infant mortality figure which they then proceeded to accept as an accurate estimate for the infant mortality rate for the entire nation.

The study defends the 29 figure by noting that “the preconflict infant mortality rate (29 deaths per 1000 livebirths) we recorded is similar to estimates from neighbouring countries.” In so doing it blatantly ignores a number of key facts. First, other “neighbouring countries” were not subject to sanctions or Saddam Hussein’s reign of tyranny in the same period. Secondly, a UNICEF study conducted in Iraq for the period from 1994 to 1999 came up with an infant mortality figure of 108 per 1000 livebirths. That would mean if the UNICEF numbers are accurate, the infant mortality rate would have had to drop by over three-and-a-half times within 3 years in an Iraq under sanctions and Hussein’s rule.

The “58-Fold” Canard

Some particularly outspoken critics of the Iraq war have pointed with horror and outrage to the Lancet study’s finding that: “Violence-specific mortality rate went up 58-fold during the period after invasion.”

One problem with the 58 fold figure is that it is derived using all 33 clusters including the data gathered in Falluja. The authors came to the figure using this data: “After the invasion, 142 deaths (73 of them violent) were reported in 138,439 person-months of residency. Before the invasion, respondent households reported 46 deaths (1 of them violent) during 110,538 person-months of residency.”

So again, you simply adjust for time by dividing 110,538 by 138,439. That gives you .79846. Then you multiply that by the ratio of the number of violent deaths “post-invasion” to the number of violent deaths “pre-invasion.” That figure is 73. 73 multiplied by .79846 gives us 58.3.

But get this, if even one more death had been reported for the “pre-invasion” period, it would have cut the 58-fold” figure in half to 29! In fact, the “58-fold” figure depends on just one reported death in the “pre-invasion” period.

Here again, the data is fatally flawed and rendered useless by the fact that the sample group is simply far, far too small to produce meaningful results.

Falluja Not a Risk???

In the “Methods” section of the Lancet study, the authors changed the locations of some of the clusters they planned to visit. The reason, according to them was the following:

“During September 2004, many roads were not under the control of the Government of Iraq or coalition forces. Local police checkpoints were perceived by team members as target identification screens for rebel groups. To lessen risks to investigators, we sought to minimise travel distances and the number of Governorates to visit, while still sampling from all regions of the country. We did this by clumping pairs of Governorates.”

In other words, some of the clusters were moved in order to (in the words of the authors) “lessen risks to investigators.” Yet the same study authors who were so worried about risks had no problem allowing their “investigators” to drive right into Falluja in September 2004 and conduct their survey while the city was still under the control of violent insurgents and subject to a Coalition siege featuring almost daily bombardment from the air and ground. Let’s not forget about the kidnapping victims who ended up at Al-Qaeda headquarters in Falluja during this same period.

Now, how, exactly, is that consistent? If the study leaders were as concerned about safety as they claim they were, why would they allow their investigators to drive right into Falluja at a time like that? What could have possibly been their motivation? Does that not seem just the slightest bit contradictory? All things considered, one has to wonder about the logic that went into selecting the other 32 clusters chosen as well.

Saddam’s Long Rule of Violence Not Accurately Reflected by Study

And how can we say that the 14.6 months preceding the war are an accurate reflection/representation of Saddam Hussein’s 24 year regime and the violence wrought by that regime over the years? The year and a half before the war happened to be one of the less violent periods of Hussein’s regime. But is this period an accurate reflection of the average number of deaths suffered at the hands of the Baathist tyranny over the years? Of course not! And there is no guarantee that Saddam and his vicious sons would not have carried out future massacres had they been left in power. There history (they are responsible for killing hundreds of thousands) certainly would not have made such an event unlikely.

Again, for the reasons given above, the Lancet study is fatally flawed. Above all, the data derived from the study is useless because the group sampled is too small and too subject to radical change through small anomalies.

One last point: Tim has mentioned the death certificate issue. He has pointed out that in the 78 households where documentation of death was requested (or in the words of the authors, “where confirmations were attempted”, in 61 cases (81% of the time) it was provided. However, let’s keep in mind that the study recorded a total of 231 deaths. That would indicate that, unless all 231 deaths in fact occurred in just 78 households, that the study did not even request proof of death in many cases of reported death. Why don’t you deal with these issues Tim, dsquared and the other Lancet defenders???

—Ray D.

After accusing the researchers and the Lancet of fraud
and treason, Shannon Love is back with another accusation. The latest crime he accuses them of is…

Oops, make that four, maybe five severe problems

As close readers of these threads know, I have become reasonably confident that the raw data were honestly collected and collated, so Roberts’ harshest critics will find no satisfaction there.

This hyperlink will take you directly to the comment (timestamped 28/3 13:48), on the 25 March post “Lancet Links.”

What steps were taken to ensure that death due to the actions of Saddam’s security forces, which may not show up in formal death statistics and may noit end up in morgues, were included within the study?

What measures were taken, if any, to ensure that questions about this item would be adequately sampled for and accounted for properly, especially given that the deaths tended to happen in remote geographical locations that were not towns, and whose populations may have been taken there before the period studied?

Enquiring minds want to know.

So for its findings the study relied on 32 clusters with (if we take the averages) 960 households and around 7630 residents. In these 32 clusters, 46 deaths were reported in a 14.6 month (or 442 day) period from January 1, 2002 to March 18, 2003 leading up to the war, which yields an average of 3.15 deaths per month. This period is referred to as the “pre-invasion” period by the study’s authors. In the same clusters, 89 deaths (21 of which were violent) were reported in the 17.8 month (or 548 day) period from March 19, 2003 to September 16, 2004, which yields an average of 5 deaths per month. This period, which includes the major combat operations phase of the Iraq conflict, is referred to as the “post-invasion” period by the study’s authors.

The numbers above serve as the fundamental basis for the Lancet Study’s estimate of “100,000 excess deaths” in Iraq. Here is essentially how they used the numbers they provided to get that result:

First, because the two periods under consideration are different (14.6 months versus 17.8 months), one has to adjust for time. One of the ways this can be done is by simply taking the average number of recorded deaths per month “pre-invasion” (3.15) and multiplying it by 17.8 months. That gives us right about 56 deaths. Remember for the “post-invasion” period, we had 89 deaths in 17.8 months. So now, after adjusting for time, we still have 33 “additional” deaths (89 minus 56) in the “post-invasion” period in our 32 clusters.

You may be wondering…how did they get 100,000+ “additional” Iraqi deaths from 33? Well, this is how:

First you take the estimated population of Iraq: The survey uses 24.4 million. You divide the total population of Iraq by the overall number of people included in the 32 clusters surveyed (7630) for a result of 3198. Then you take your 33 “additional” deaths and multiply them by 3198 and there you have your 100,000+ “additional” Iraqi deaths. The study used another equation to calculate its range of 8,000 to 194,000 “additional” deaths.

Could anyone provide me with the equation the study used to come up with the range 8,000 to 194,000. Thanks.

—Ray D.

Here is a copy of your email to Jack Straw:

Dear Foreign Secretary,

I am writing to ask the government to commission a government survey to
determine how many Iraqis have died or been injured since the March 2003
invasion – and the cause of those casualties.

I believe that Iraqi casualties could provide useful decision making
information. If a good count can be made, it may also be useful in dispelling
the propaganda of the bias parties which often do their own shody research.

Yours sincerely,

Aaron Chmielewski
Michigan, US

Aaron Chmielewski
aaroncc44@hotmail.com

Table 2 highlights that excess deaths in a country of 25 million are being projected from very small numbers. Total postwar dead counted: 90 EFC, 142 IFC.

Common sense says that when one breaks a total into smaller sets, the CI gets larger. Estimates that start with very small numbers of deaths will yield CIs that are very broad.

Roberts’ best-estimate of excess deaths and 95% CI from 90 total deaths: 98,000; 8,000-194,000
Roberts’ best-estimate of excess deaths from 9 Violence-by-Coalition deaths: not stated.
OK, here’s my arithmetic-based estimate of Roberts’ estimate of Violence-by-Coalition deaths: 26,000 (see my handling of Table 2 data earlier on this thread, 3/25 5:07pm).

What’s the 95% CI on Violence-by-Coalition deaths? It has to be, proportionally, much wider than that given for all deaths. I’ll guess it’s proportional to the overall CI and two times its width (this is incorrect; for purposes of discussion only).
Violence-by-Coalition deaths: 26,000; 1,000-103,000.

The authors can make statements about Violence-by-Coalition deaths in the paper. The Lancet’s editors can make statements about Violence-by-Coalition deaths in editorials. Journalists and bloggers can make statements about Violence-by-Coalition deaths in the wider world.

However, as they relate to the Roberts mortality analysis, such statements are based on an unstated number (~26,000?) that would be accompanied by a very broad 95% CI (1,000??-103,000??).

Where is the real statistical-analysis-derived estimate for Violence by Coalition deaths? Where is the calculated 95% CI for that number?

In their absence, all Roberts-based discussion of Violence-by-Coalition deaths is based on:

Roberts et al. surveyed households in 33 randomly-chosen clusters in Iraq. 988 households were chosen, most were successfully interviewed. Interviews in the 32 clusters outside of Fallujah turned up reports of 9 deaths due to Coalition action. Interviews in the Fallujah cluster yielded reports of 52 deaths due to Coalition action.

That’s it.

What Roberts say in the Summary and the Discussion has already been reviewed in these threads, notably their habit of segueing, unannounced, from EFC analysis to IFC raw numbers.

Here’s what Lancet editor Richard Horton wrote in the accompanying editorial “The war in Iraq: civilian casualties, political responsibilities” (Lancet v. 364, #9448, p. 1831, 20 Nov 2004 [same date as Roberts]):

Much of [the] increased mortality [reported by Roberts] is a consequence of the prevailing climate of violence in the country, and many of the civilian casualties that are described were attributed to the actions of coalition forces. These findings…have immediately translatable policy implications for those charged with managing the aftermath of invasion….
…the central observation–namely, that civilian mortality since the war has risen due to the effects of aerial weaponry–is convincing. This result requires an urgent political and military response if the confidence of ordinary Iraqis in the mostly American-British occupation is to be restored.

Here is how Bushra Ibrahim Al-Rubeyi begins his invited Comment, “Mortality before and after the invasion of Iraq in 2003” (Lancet v. 364, # 9448, p. 1834, 20 Nov 2004):

In this week’s Lancet, Les Roberts and colleagues show that the death toll from the invasion and occupation of Iraq is about 98000 civilians, and it might be considerably higher. The deaths are mostly related to air strikes.

I hope these editorial comments on Roberts’ paper–released just-in-time for the US Presidential election–were due to incompetence in interpreting the article. The alternative is that they were sound-bites designed to mislead readers as to what conclusions Roberts’ data actually supported.

This discussion is germane to Shannon Love’s assertion that the Lancet has abandoned standards of objectivity in its handling of Roberts. If this is how the chief editor behaves, it’s easy to imagine how the Lancet’s transparency-lacking peer-review process could be corrupted. The Lancet’s “brand reputation”–its prestige and its citation index–mean very little.

What this journal publishes is not to be trusted.

One possibility that comes to mind is that attempts to minimise civilian casualties can be counter-productive: it may mean that the conflict lasts longer than it would otherwise, and that the combatants may become so powerful that certain cities become no-drive zones for coalition forces – meaning that fighting the combatants may involve air strikes, which may increase the possibility of civilian deaths.

If this is so, and body counts cause the armed forces to do actions that attempt to avoid civilian casualties, then it’s possible that body counts may increase civilian casualties.

Thank you for your inquiry. I am the analyst for Iraq here in the International Programs Center and have been asked to respond to your inquiry. While Census Bureau’s International Data Base, which feeds into the CIA factbook, is updated annually, we sometimes have not completed analysis of new information at the time of an update, and this is the case for Iraq. We have begun a revision to the IDB mortality estimates for Iraq but have not completed that revision at this time. I expect our new estimates will be more in line with the UNICEF estimates than those currently shown in the IDB and in the Factbook, but until we complete
this update I can’t be more specific.

Sincerely,
-
Dr. Thomas M. McDevitt
Chief, Population Studies Branch
International Programs Center
Population Division
U.S. Census Bureau
ph: 301-763-1356
FAX 301-457-1539
email: thomas.m.mcdevitt@census.gov

The Unicef estimate of infant mortality is nearly twice that of the CIA factbook. Oh, how I hate this uncertainty and the apparent unwillingness by IPC and Unicef to publish their methods clearly and somewhere easily accessible.

>Did Roberts differentiate insurgents killed by the Coalition from civilians?

Table 2 apparently breaks down to 9 killed by coalition excluding the Fallujah cluster (EFC). Roberts says (p. 7 col. 2) that 3 of 61 IFC killings were by US ground forces; one might have been an insurgent and two were mistakes. All the rest were from airstrikes.

> Did Roberts track Iraqi security forces in the stats?

As far as I can tell, no.

> At that point in time, StrategyPage.com was carrying about 17,000 insurgents KIA.

Well, like Shannon Love, every time I re-read the Roberts paper, it looks wierd in a new and different way. Unlike Love, I accept the honesty of the raw data, mainly because as a whole it’s so “bad” that I can’t see anybody massaging it to get it to this point. I can’t say that the data collection was done correctly–just seems that it’s honest.

Having to exclude the Fallujah cluster is really embarassing, in my opinion, despite what dsquared, T. Lambert, K. Donoghue, disputo, and others say. This was a study of postwar violence in Iraq, known a priori to be highly geographically heterogeneous. Fallujah was known to be the most violent place, followed by (off the top of my head) Ramadi, Tikrit, Syrian border, Najaf, Salman Pak area, and Sadr City [not in any order]. When their cluster-assignment process gives them Fallujah, their analysis turns out to be based on algorithms that can’t handle it.

Re-read Kruskal’s “wild data” essay. He’s talking about unexpected things causing outliers. Measurement failures, fins falling off bombs, data-entry errors. Here, we are talking about an outlier that is caused by a seemingly-correct tabulation of the very thing that the authors knowingly set out to study. Common sense says, bad design. If I was to guess, it would be (1) failure to segregate known high-violence areas, and (2) insufficient power overall, i.e. 33 clusters was way too few to produce a usefully tight confidence interval.

More later.

In the light of the Lancet study the phrase “even thousands of civilian deaths” suggests you haven’t given any real thought to the loss of life your proposed policy entails. Think hundreds of thousands. Airstrikes would not suffice and Iran would be a much more troublesome country to invade and occupy than Iraq.

To a less blindered person it might suggest that I do not accept the Lancet study’s conclusions. Since I have already made clear that I reject those conclusions, your response is an evasion.

A reasonable person might also conclude that my use of the phrase “even thousands of civilian deaths” indicates that I think the alternatives are worse, which of course was my point. And of course you ignore this point, because to acknowledge that the Teheran regime is capable of killing millions of people is to admit that maybe the U.S. war effort is justified after all.

Your premises appear to be 1) that the Lancet article’s assertions about civilian deaths are important in themselves, even if they are unsupported by data and 2) that if I agree with one of your stipulations I must therefore also agree with your conclusions. Both of these premises are nonsequiturs.

Of course, in order to be unaffected, one only has to cover one’s ears and shout “Bad sample! Bad sample!” That, in a nutshell, is the Love critique and I have wasted enough time on it.

That is indeed the gist of Shannon’s argument. And again your position appears to be that the anti-war case is intrinsically so important that we should overlook the inadequacy of the data supporting it. That’s absurd.

We really have arrived at po-mo science.