US dismisses report on Iraq toll but author defends research

[leftchick]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061012/wl_afp/usiraqtollreportbush_061012082233

<snip>

The US president in the past has estimated the number of Iraqi deaths to be closer to 30,000, and reaffirmed that number Wednesday.

"I stand by the figure," he said. "Six hundred thousand or whatever they guessed at ... it's not credible."

<snip>

But the author of the study, Gilbert Burnham of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, defended his findings as reliable and based on methods commonly used by researchers in the health field.

"We use a cluster survey sampling methodology and this is something that is widely used in international health," said Burnham, co-director of the center for refugees and disaster response at Johns Hopkins.

The survey method is used to confirm government figures for health indicators and "it's increasingly used to look at mortality rate in conflict," Burnham said.

[LynnTheDem]

1. FACT: Over 30,000 Iraqis were killed just in "shock and awe".

Over 3 years ago. And that's just Iraqis who happened to be wearing uniforms.

U.S. General Tommy Franks estimated soon after the invasion that there had been 30,000 Iraqi troops killed as of April 9, 2003.
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20040419-secdef1362.html

As those Iraqi troops hadn't been doing anything against anyone until they were forced to defend their country against illegal invaders, why are they never counted by America as part of America's victims?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. excellent question

too bad there's no reporters out there with the cahones to ask shrub about it.

[leftchick]

13. I never saw that before

thank you for the link.

[grytpype]

3. Maybe that's where Idiot Boy got his 30,000 figure. n/t

[rodeodance]

4. Average (88 votes) 4.5 stars

RECOMMEND THIS STORY

Your Recommendation:

Average (88 votes)
4.5 stars

[rodeodance]

5. i can not believe how dismissive he is of Acedemic research!

...."I do know that a lot of innocent people have died, and it troubles me and grieves me," Bush said at a White House press conference.

But the president added that he and his top military advisers believe "the methodology is pretty well discredited."

The US president in the past has estimated the number of Iraqi deaths to be closer to 30,000, and reaffirmed that number Wednesday.

"I stand by the figure," he said. "Six hundred thousand or whatever they guessed at ... it's not credible."

[rodeodance]

6. Australia and UK also diss the Report!

Australian Prime Minister John Howard Thursday also rejected the report.

"I don't believe that John Hopkins (university) report," said Howard, whose government contributed troops to the invasion and maintains a force of some 1,300 involved in Iraqi operations.

"It's not plausible, it's not based on anything other than a house to house survey -- I think that's absolutely precarious.

"It is an unbelievably large number and it's out of whack with most of the other assessments that have been made," Howard said.

Earlier British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said the new study represented a "substantial leap" on previous figures, but stopped short of dismissing it outright.

[Sabriel]

9. "Guessed at"????!!!!!

What do these people think scientific research is all about? Is the warning about global warming just a bunch of crazy guesses? Is the scientific community no more than a bunch of 2nd graders trying to figure out why baking soda reacts with vinegar?

What utter crap. Time and time again, as rodeodance says, this administration (and Blair's) dismisses scientific study, yet offers nothing to either back up their dismissal or present alternative proof.

edited to add Recommend

[rodeodance]

7. I am so glad to see the author HIT BACK!

[rodeodance]

8. Recommend

[al bupp]

10. Yet another example of the Admin's State of Denial

Just listened to Les Roberts (report co-author on Democracy Now!)

Said that, due to the wide-spread breakdown in official reporting mechanisms and the difficulty in making a survey during wartime, the figure is admittedly imprecise. However, they are 95% certain that the real figure is somewhere between 400,000 and 950,000. That means statistically, the chance of the actual number being what B*sh asserts (AKA 30-50K) has about a 2% probability.

[flyarm]

11. AP: Iraq to Stop Counting Civilian Dead Wed Dec 10,2003

iN DEC 2003 THE DEATHS WERE ACCUMULATING HIGH NUMBERS..SO LITTLE LORD PISSY PANTS MADE THE IRAQI'S STOP COUNTING THE DEAD..AND SHUT DOWN THEIR OFFICES WHERE THE DEATH COUNT WAS GOING ON.

oh and check the date of this!!

so exactly how would little lord pissy pants know the death toll??

pissy pants is not only one of the worst murderers in the world..he is a bonafied liar of the worst kind!


from my files.,.fly

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/AP_Iraq_to... ....

AP: Iraq to Stop Counting Civilian Dead

Wed Dec 10,2003

By NIKO PRICE, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi Health Ministry officials ordered a halt to a count of civilian casualties from the war and told workers not to release figures already compiled, the head of the ministry's statistics department told The Associated Press on Wednesday.



The health minister, Dr. Khodeir Abbas, denied that he or the U.S.-led occupation authority had anything to do with the order, and said he didn't even know about the survey of deaths, which number in the thousands.



Dr. Nagham Mohsen, the head of the ministry's statistics department, said the order came from the ministry's director of planning, Dr. Nazar Shabandar, who told her it was on behalf of Abbas. She said the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which oversees the ministry, didn't like the idea of the count either.



"We have stopped the collection of this information because our minister didn't agree with it," she said, adding: "The CPA doesn't want this to be done."

[leftchick]

14. Gen. Casey said not more than 50,000 Iraqi dead!

and I thought the same thing, they don't fucking count the dead how would he know??

:grr:

[Zodiak]

15. They don't know. They don't care.

and they have gone public on both counts, so they are talking to the wall. No American will believe them any more.

They have jumped the shark. Everyone knows that 60-120 bodies turning up dead in IRaq every day does not make a 30,000 dead number remain stagnant for years.

The last survey was conducted BEFORE Fallujah.

The number is now 600,000, regardless of what Commander Codpiece and his collection of tin-star sycophantic generals say.

What are they gonna say "we have created chaos in Iraq that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives"?

What I am REALLY interested in is the reaction of the world community to these numbers because at least THEY give credence to the scientific method.

[flyarm]

17. they don't and they did everything they could that Americans and the

World would never have an accurate counting of the murders * is responsible for!!

how could they keep the American people in check for their imperial party if they heard death counts??

i was so furious when this was done ..that i was determined to keep that article in my files

I knew this day ..that we were in Iraq to stay..and own them!

fly

[Jacobin]

20. Very important

Thanks for posting this. I vaguely remember reading that but couldn't find the link

[Barrett808]

12. k & r

[freedomchips]

16. "Is not" is NOT an argument!

we've got friggin 5 year old in the WH

[carzen]

18. if shrub says something then you know the opposite is true

[Imagevision]

19. Nothing but denials from this corrupt administration

[rodeodance]

21. k

[0rganism]

22. the US didn't dismiss jack shit; bush is NOT the US

He may be liar-in-chief, but he is not the whole country.

[leftchick]

24. excellent point

I have problems often with the AFP headlines mostly because they are verbose but this is just plain wrong.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

25. To the rest of the world, Bush = U.S.

Before the 2004 election the world gave us a pass. Most international headlines referred to "Bush" and not "U.S." They figured we were just as surprised as they were about what a shithead * really was (although this wasn't a surprise to anyone who frequents DU).

After 2004 the world decided, rightly or wrongly, that by reelecting * we agreed with his actions. Thereafter headlines and stories referred to "U.S." nearly exclusively.

[0rganism]

27. or to the guy who wrote the headline, anyway

I happen to have a problem with it, I disagree with the premise.

Similarly, I would take issue with multiple statements you make:
> Before the 2004 election the world gave us a pass.
"The world", or at least its various constituent human participants, had their sundry issues with us long before 2004.

> Most international headlines referred to "Bush" and not "U.S."
That's possible, I suppose. Have you done any research to support this assertion? It seems like it could be a verifiable data point concerning editorial opinion abroad, but I haven't seen anything along these lines. I wouldn't want to go out on that limb without some backup.

> ...(although this (the shitheadedness of bush) wasn't a surprise to anyone who frequents DU).
I definitely skew on this one. Despite my years of frequenting DU, I have been, am, and will continue to be surprised, at least once per week, by some godawful thing that bush and his squirming minions have pulled. Shock and awe, who knew it would last 6 years? What amazes me is that my opinion of bush continues to decline as time goes on.

> After 2004 the world decided, rightly or wrongly, that by reelecting * we agreed with his actions.
Well, I didn't vote for *, and I sure as hell didn't vote to decide that by re-electing * we agreed with his actions. I consider myself part of the world, was I disenfranchised? Who got to decide for the world? Bush the Decider?

> Thereafter headlines and stories referred to "U.S." nearly exclusively.
Again, this is something that should be quantifiable as a matter of record. Do you have a URL handy that supports this assertion?

You seem to be making a comparable characterization of "the world" to that which you allege "the world" made of the US, post-2004. Do you really think such large-scale generalizations are valid?

[Rex]

23. Go ahead and deny history war criminal, in the end it won't

matter what you say. World history will judge you to be a mass murderer. Hope you sleep well knowing what your grandkids are going to hear about their granddad.

[pinniped]

26. The only research the POS* ever did was on which drugs to use.

.