The Lancet study’s figure of 654,965 deaths through the end of June 2006 is based on household survey data. The estimate is for all violent and nonviolent deaths. That also includes those due to increased lawlessness, degraded infrastructure, poorer healthcare, etc.. 601,027 deaths (range of 426,369 to 793,663 using a 95% confidence interval) were estimated to be due to violence. 31% of those were attributed to the Coalition, 24% to others, 46% unknown. The causes of violent deaths were gunshot (56%), car bomb (13%), other explosion/ordnance (14%), air strike (13%), accident (2%), unknown (2%). A copy of a death certificate was available for a high proportion of the reported deaths (92 per cent of those households asked to produce one).
The U.S. armed forces reported 3,921 American dead. 8,691 wounded
Based the Lancet study’s figure and the U.S. armed forces. Was the war worth the death toll? Was freeing the Iraqis from Saddam worth it?
Your opinion would be great. Thanks.
Sorry if there is a typo
27,499,638 – Iraq Population
bmulek20 You where 23 million off
Intresting point though
”BUSH LIED… BUSH LIED… BUSH LIED…” !!!
Read U.N. Resolution 1441
Hanz Blick, who no longer believed WMD remained in Iraq, still declared Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in material breech of U.N. Res. 1441, for noncompliance… which clearly stated that this was his final opportunity to comply with Iraq’s Gulf War cease fire agreements… of which noncompliance would result in the continuation of the Gulf War military conflict.
The coalition forces in Iraq are enforcing international law pursuant to U.N. Res. 1441.
I could continue to make the case much further in support of the coalition forces, and would do so, if I thought any of the opposition was interested in the truth… in-lieu of conspiracy theories!
How could anyone have an informed opinion on the Iraq conflict without having read U.N. Res. 1441, which led to the continuation of the Gulf War military conflict.
PLEASE !!!
Enough with the Bush lied… did 9-11… Haliburton… Oil… and New World Order… cr_p !!!
The Iraqi conflict has everything to do with enforcing Iraq’s Gulf War cease fire agreements… and abiding by Bill Clinton’s "1998 IRAQI LIBERATION ACT’… of which inspired Clinton to bomb Baghdad with 400 cruise missiles in an effort to topple Saddam’s regime.
80,000 deaths are attributed to the Iraq conflict… most of which were the result of insurgent attacks directed at Iraqi citizens… while the Red Cross stated that the U.N. Sanctions in place prior to the conflict were causing the deaths of more than 400,000 women and children every year.
As such… removing Saddam from power has saved 1,920,000 lives !
The only mass hysteria that I’ve noticed has been the unhinged looney Leftists plagued with the pathology of Bush derangement syndrome… ever since he was [according to them] selected to President.
If the loones on the left think that Bush has lied to the public, violated civil rights of citizens, committed war crimes, and pilfered the treasury for the benefit of his buddies in the military industrial complex… all of which are accusations made by the moonbats on the Left… then file a class action lawsuit against Bush and his coconspirators and put them in jail.
Eitlher put up… or… shut up !!!
Even though the unDemocratic Party has control of both the House and the Senate… they wouldn’t pursue such a lawsuit because they know all those accusations are a bunch of bolder-dash intended for their koolaid drinking, goose stepping, heel clicking group-think followers in their farcical neo[NON]progressive socialist activist movement.
I only hope that they eventually get a grip before the neurons in their collective heads start misfiring and they snap… and they become a danger to themselves and society.
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"NOW LETS REVIEW WHO SAID WHAT AND WHEN”
Saddam’s goal … is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed." — Madeline Albright, 1998
"(Saddam) will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and some day, some way, I am certain he will use that arsenal again, as he has 10 times since 1983" — National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Feb 18, 1998
"Iraq made commitments after the Gulf War to completely dismantle all weapons of mass destruction, and unfortunately, Iraq has not lived up to its agreement." — Barbara Boxer, November 8, 2002
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retained some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capability. Intelligence reports also indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons, but has not yet achieved nuclear capability." — Robert Byrd, October 2002
"There’s no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat… Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He’s had those for a long time. But the United States right now is on a very much different defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001… He is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn’t have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we." — Wesley Clark on September 26, 2002
"What is at stake is how to answer the potential threat Iraq represents with the risk of proliferation of WMD. Baghdad’s regime did use such weapons in the past. Today, a number of evidences may lead to think that, over the past four years, in the absence of international inspectors, this country has continued armament programs." — Jacques Chirac, October 16, 2002
"The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow." — Bill Clinton in 1998
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security." — Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002
"I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons…I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out." — Clinton’s Secretary of Defense William Cohen in April of 2003
"Iraq is not the only nation in the world to possess weapons of mass destruction, but it is the only nation with a leader who has used them against his own people." — Tom Daschle in 1998
"Saddam Hussein’s regime represents a grave threat to America and our allies, including our vital ally, Israel. For more than two decades, Saddam Hussein has sought weapons of mass destruction through every available means. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons. He has already used them against his neighbors and his own people, and is trying to build more. We know that he is doing everything he can to build nuclear weapons, and we know that each day he gets closer to achieving that goal." — John Edwards, Oct 10, 2002
"The debate over Iraq is not about politics. It is about national security. It should be clear that our national security requires Congress to send a clear message to Iraq and the world: America is united in its determination to eliminate forever the threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction." — John Edwards, Oct 10, 2002
"I share the administration’s goals in dealing with Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction." — Dick Gephardt in September of 2002
"Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq’s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." — Al Gore, 2002
"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." — Bob Graham, December 2002
"Saddam Hussein is not the only deranged dictator who is willing to deprive his people in order to acquire weapons of mass destruction." — Jim Jeffords, October 8, 2002
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." — Ted Kennedy, September 27, 2002
"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein’s regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed." — Ted Kennedy, Sept 27, 2002
"I will be voting to give the president of the United States the authority to use force – if necessary – to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." — John F. Kerry, Oct 2002
"The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but as I said, it is not new. It has been with us since the end of that war, and particularly in the last 4 years we know after Operation Desert Fox failed to force him to reaccept them, that he has continued to build those weapons. He has had a free hand for 4 years to reconstitute these weapons, allowing the world, during the interval, to lose the focus we had on weapons of mass destruction and the issue of proliferation." — John Kerry, October 9, 2002
"(W)e need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. We all know the litany of his offenses. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. …And now he is miscalculating America?s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. That is why the world, through the United Nations Security Council, has spoken with one voice, demanding that Iraq disclose its weapons programs and disarm. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but it is not new. It has been with us since the end of the Persian Gulf War." — John Kerry, Jan 23, 2003
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandates of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them." — Carl Levin, Sept 19, 2002
"As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." — Nancy Pelosi, December 16, 1998
Saddam?s existing biological and chemical weapons capabilities pose a very real threat to America, now. Saddam has used chemical weapons before, both against Iraq?s enemies and against his own people. He is working to develop delivery systems like missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles that could bring these deadly weapons against U.S. forces and U.S. facilities in the Middle East." — John Rockefeller, Oct 10, 2002
"Whether one agrees or disagrees with the Administration?s policy towards Iraq, I don?t think there can be any question about Saddam?s conduct. He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do. He lies and cheats; he snubs the mandate and authority of international weapons inspectors; and he games the system to keep buying time against enforcement of the just and legitimate demands of the United Nations, the Security Council, the United States and our allies. Those are simply the facts." — Henry Waxman, Oct 10, 2002
”OOPS” !!!
”NOW… WERE THEY LYING ALSO” ???
”TIME TO EAT CROW FOOLS”
[Mr. T]
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LANCET IRAQ WAR STUDY
Lead researcher in a 2004 study which estimated that more than 100,000 civilians had died as a result of the Iraq War
Lead researcher in a 2006 study which estimated that 655,000 Iraqi civilians had died as a result of the Iraq War
Les Roberts is an epidemiologist based at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore. A native New Yorker, Roberts earned his undergraduate degree at St. Lawrence University, a master’s degree in public health from Tulane University, and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from Johns Hopkins University, where he is currently a lecturer. In addition, he did post-graduate fellowship work at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. Prior to his current position at the Bloomberg School, Roberts was a Director of Health Policy at the International Rescue Committee. In 1994 he conducted a study for the World Health Organization to estimate the number of refugees created by the violent Tutsi-Hutu clashes in Rwanda. Six years later he performed a similar study to estimate the number of deaths caused by the war in Congo.
Roberts made headlines in late October 2004, when, a week prior to the U.S. presidential election, his study titled "Mortality Before and After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: Cluster Sample Survey" was published in the British medical journal Lancet. Roberts was the lead investigator for the study, which was conducted by a group of scientists not only from Johns Hopkins, but also from Al-Mustansirya University in Baghdad and Columbia University in New York.
Roberts was the lead author of the Lancet article, which asserted that somewhere between 69,000 and 155,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed in the Iraq War since its March 2003 beginning. Roberts concluded that the most likely figure was approximately 100,000 deaths nationwide, not including deaths in the city of Fallujah — where the heaviest sustained fighting had taken place. Suggesting that unbridled American aggression was ultimately to blame for the carnage in Iraq, Roberts said it was vital to determine "[h]ow many times Coalition soldiers fire in anger each day and how has that changed over time."
At the time of the Lancet article’s publication, other estimates of civilian deaths were much lower. For example, British foreign secretary Jack Straw placed the figure at approximately 15,000. Iraq Body Count, a database run by academics and peace activists, said the death toll was between 14,000 and 16,000. The Brookings Institution’s estimates ranged from 10,000 to 27,000.
Roberts’ estimates were based on a door-to-door survey of approximately 30 randomly selected households in each of 33 geographic clusters across Iraq, or a total of 988 homes. Identifying themselves as researchers "from the university," Roberts’ interviewers — all native Iraqis — asked each respondent to tell them who had been living in his or her home as of January 1, 2002, and whether any of those people had died since then — and if so, when and how. In these households, a total of 142 people were reported as having died in the post-invasion period, 72 of them violently; 51 of those violent deaths had occurred in Fallujah, and just 21 in the other 18 Governorates, or districts, included in the study. From this information, Roberts and his colleagues calculated that Iraqi civilians’ relative risk of dying from any cause was 2.5 times higher after the March 2003 invasion than it had been during the preceding 14-and-a-half months. But if the data from Fallujah was excluded, the figure dropped to 1.5 times the pre-invasion death rate. Stating that "violence was the primary cause of death" after the invasion, Roberts’ report attributed those violent deaths mainly to coalition forces — and identified most of the victims as women and children. "Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess deaths, or more, have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq," said Roberts.
The day after the Lancet article appeared, Fred Kaplan, a defense correspondent for Slate magazine, called Roberts’ estimate of 100,000 deaths "so loose as to be meaningless. … This isn’t an estimate. It’s a dart board." Despite being a self-proclaimed "persistent and outspoken critic of the Iraq war," Kaplan said it was crucial for researchers to avoid gearing their "analysis to the conclusions that [they would] like to reach" — implying that Roberts had allowed his personal views to corrupt his findings.
A more detailed critique of Roberts’ methodology was put forth by political consultant Steven E. Moore, who had trained Iraqi researchers for the International Republican Institute from 2003 to 2004, and who had conducted survey research for the Coalition Forces from 2005 to 2006. Moore contended that Roberts had used a woefully inadequate number of cluster points in his research, and that his results were thus not reliable.
Wrote Moore: "What happens when you don’t use enough cluster points in a survey? You get crazy results when compared to a known quantity, or a survey with more cluster points." Moore cited, as an example, a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) survey conducted in April and May 2004, four months prior to the Roberts study. The UNDP study, which used 66 cluster points, had estimated between 18,000 and 29,000 war-related Iraqi civilian deaths — totals far smaller than those suggested by the Roberts team, which used 33 cluster points.
In an April 2005 interview with the Socialist Worker, Roberts stated, "As far as I’m concerned the exact number of dead is not so important. It is many tens of thousands. Whether it’s 80,000 or 140,000 dead, it’s just not acceptable."
In July 2005 Roberts authored a paper titled "The Iraq War: Do Civilians Matter?" — published by the MIT Center for International Studies (CIS). In that piece, Roberts attributed Middle Eastern Muslims’ "sudden burst of hatred" for Americans in large measure to the public perception that President Bush had "brusquely dismissed" accusations by Amnesty International (and other organizations) of "a pattern of [American-perpetrated] abuse … in Guantanamo Bay." He further lamented that "the greatest threat to U.S. national security" was "the image that the United States is a violator of international laws and order and that there is no means other than violence to curb it."
In the same CIS paper, Roberts wrote: "A report in the New England Journal of Medicine [NEJM] in July 2004, based on interviews with returning U.S. soldiers, suggests an unintentional non-combatant death toll of 133 deaths per day." To this, John Sloboda, co-founder of Iraq Body Count, wrote an email to Roberts, in which he stated that "nowhere in this cited NEJM paper is there any reference to an estimated per-day rate of violent deaths, whether 133 or any other number, and there is nothing in any of your publications to explain how this 133 per-day rate is derived."
"You simply cite the undoubtedly prestigious Journal as if it contained the facts you claim for it," Sloboda told Roberts, "which it does not … We recently contacted the first author of the NEJM paper, Dr. Charles Hoge, who replied as follows: ‘In no way can our data be used … to estimate actual civilian casualty numbers.’ In summary, you [Mr. Roberts] have published a claim, on the basis of the Hoge et al paper, which the lead author of that paper says is unsustainable…."
In mid-October 2006 — once again, shortly before a crucial political election — Roberts and a team of fellow Johns Hopkins researchers released the results of a follow-up to their 2004 study of Iraqi civilian deaths. For this new report, the researchers had gathered data from a sample of 1,849 Iraqi households distributed over 47 cluster points from late May to early July of 2006. According to the survey results, Iraq’s mortality rate in the 15 months prior to the invasion had been 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people per year; in the post-invasion period it was 13.3 deaths per 1,000 people. The difference between these rates was used to calculate "excess deaths" that would not ordinarily have been expected. Based on those figures, the researchers estimated that some 655,000 Iraqi civilians had died from war-related causes between the March 2003 U.S. invasion and the beginning of July 2006.
The aforementioned Steven Moore observed, "The 2004 survey by the Johns Hopkins group was itself methodologically suspect — and the [2006] one they just published even more so." In the October 18, 2006 Wall Street Journal, Moore elaborated: "[T]he key to the validity of cluster sampling is to use enough cluster points. In their 2006 report, ‘Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional sample survey,’ the Johns Hopkins team says it used 47 cluster points for their sample of 1,849 interviews. This is astonishing: I wouldn’t survey a junior high school, no less an entire country, using only 47 cluster points."
By comparison, Moore noted: "For its 2004 survey of Iraq, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) used 2,200 cluster points of 10 interviews each for a total sample of 21,688. … Appendix A of the Johns Hopkins survey … cites several other studies of mortality in war zones, and uses the citations to validate the group’s use of cluster sampling. One study is by the International Rescue Committee in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which used 750 cluster points. Harvard’s School of Public Health, in a 1992 survey of Iraq, used 271 cluster points. Another study in Kosovo cites the use of 50 cluster points, but this was for a population of just 1.6 million, compared to Iraq’s 27 million."
"With so few cluster points," concluded Moore, "it is highly unlikely the Johns Hopkins survey is representative of the population in Iraq."
The respondents in Roberts’ 2006 survey reported an aggregate total of 629 deaths in their households. Slightly more than three-fourths of the dead were men, with a greater male preponderance after the invasion. The male-to-female ratio of post-invasion violent deaths was 10-to-1, and most of the victims were between 15 and 44 years of age. These figures strongly suggest an effort by U.S. forces to avoid harming women and children. In fact, according to the respondents, just 31 percent of the violent post-invasion deaths of their household members had been caused by coalition forces or air strikes. In the first Roberts study, by contrast, "air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths." This was largely because air strikes were used far more often during the initial invasion period than in subsequent phases of the war. In fact, there were more U.S. air strikes during the first day of the invasion than during the entire year of 2005.
In 2006 the 44-year-old Les Roberts campaigned in the Democratic primary for the U.S. House of Representatives seat of the 24th Congressional District in Chenango County, NY. He withdrew from the running on May 17 and endorsed the remaining Democratic candidate, Michael Arcuri.
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Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/09/08/MOMENTUM_Healthcare_Briefing
Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/09/08/MOMENTUM_Healthcare_Briefing
http://www.HelpFulHealthCard.com
Be My Friend – http://www.myspace.com/psychtruth
First of two parts. Healthcare legislative update. Congressman Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii and Congressman John Tanner of Tennessee analyze the legislative progress of healthcare reform legislation in the U.S. House. Tanner is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and Blue Dog Coalition. First of two parts.