Time to kick Iran

[Matteo Martini]

Well, Segnosaur alluded to this, but how are you going to avoid civilian deaths when bombing "near civilian infrastructures"? If the area near a bridge is bombed, the people on that bridge are going to be killed or injured.

If the area near a water treatment plant is bombed, workers at the plant, people driving or walking by on the street, and people who live close to it are going to be killed or injured.

If the area near a city hall is bombed, city employees, people going to the city hall to do business, people walking or driving by on the street, and people who live close to it are going to be killed or injured.

Wow..
Saddam` s engineers should have been particularly skilled to place every single military installation right close to hospitals, orphanages, schools, kid` s kindergardens..

It is also my impression that the U.S. has been pretty careful not to bomb indiscriminately. There has been no carpet-bombing, has there?

Good.
Why did you invade Iraq, then?

Please note that this is not to imply any approval or disapproval of U.S. action in Iraq, just to point out what seems to be an illogical stance on your part ("avoid civilian deaths by precision-bombing military installations near civilian structures.")

Try, as much as possible, to "avoid civilian deaths by precision-bombing military installations near civilian structures"

And, given the result, we were wrong. So because we made a mistake, we should just let it stand?

Excellent.
Recognizing to be wrong, is the first step.
Now..
Why were you wrong?

You will win yourself no friends in Mexico or Canada with that assumption.

Yes, they do not like to be compared to " Estadunidenses "..

 

[Matteo Martini]

This was total garbage brought to you by the same folks at John Hopkins who later put out the 655,000 garbage. In my previous post to you, I noted some of the flaws in that 100,000 study. Didn't you bother to read it? Why do you persist in this woo from woosearchers?

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
Civilians reported killed by military intervention in Iraq
Min Max
69284 75723

Considering..

We put accuracy above speed and do not update the data base until we have located and cross-checked two or more independent approved news sources for the same incident (for more details see our Methodology). If you want to submit news stories that could help us confirm an incident involving civilian deaths please email news item weblinks to news@iraqbodycount.org (the more specific and detailed, the better).

Still, your "maximum" count seems very low to me. Surely there must be many, many more civilian deaths than you've published.

We are not a news organization ourselves and like everyone else can only base our information on what has been reported so far. What we are attempting to provide is a credible compilation of civilian deaths that have been reported by recognized sources. Our maximum therefore refers to reported deaths - which can only be a sample of true deaths unless one assumes that every civilian death has been reported. It is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media. That is the sad nature of war

I think that the number of 100000 deaths, could well be an under-estimate..

 

[Elizabeth I]

Wow..
Saddam` s engineers should have been particularly skilled to place every single military installation right close to hospitals, orphanages, schools, kid` s kindergardens..

A. In many cases, Saddam did take care to place strategic targets near civilian infrastructure. It doesn't take any particular skill, just callous indifference to the well-being of others. Why do you have such a hard time grasping that? You have no problem implying that I and several others are cold-hearted racist plutocrats who cheer at the thought of the impending execution of a poor neglected black man who never had a chance, but don't seem to be able to get your head around the thought that Saddam Hussein was NOT a nice man.

B. A great deal of the killing that's going on right now is due to insurgents, not military action. That has repeatedly been pointed out to you but you seem to choose to ignore it.

C. YOU are the one quoting near-millions of civilian dead from U.S. action, not me. So if we are not firing at military targets, do you think we are just merrily tooling around the country loosing off our M-16's? "Oooh, look, Billy Joe - kids! 10 points for every one you can pick off."

"The hell with that. I'm gonna git in my humvee and go run down grandmothers."

Admit it, Matteo, you think the military (quite possibly ANY military, but definitely the U.S. military) are criminals.

Try, as much as possible, to "avoid civilian deaths by precision-bombing military installations near civilian structures"

I believe, as a general rule, that IS what we do.

Excellent.
Recognizing to be wrong, is the first step.
Now..
Why were you wrong?

You misunderstand. I meant that we were wrong to back Saddam Hussein in the first place.

Yes, they do not like to be compared to " Estadunidenses "..

So you called a Canadian an American, then when he (she?) pointed out your error, you said, "I meant American as in living in North America." Now you say they DON'T like to be compared to "estadounidenses." So why did you (a) do it in the first place and (b) stick to it in the second place?


Finally, and to clarify my position, I think the Iraq war was mistaken, misguided, and incompetently managed. Long before the first shot was fired I figured we would wind up fighting a guerilla force just like we are right now. That is not the fault of the troops on the ground. It IS the fault of the politicians and, in some cases and to some extent, the senior officers.

However, having gotten in and messed the place up, we have an obligation to not just say, "Oh, well" and go home. AND I will not let you slam the hard-working dedicated men and women who are putting themselves in harm's way every day. People like you sneer at soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen (and women) until you need them to protect you. Then you graciously allow them to go get killed until such time as you don't need them any more, at which point you go back to sneering at them.

 

[Matteo Martini]

Admit it, Matteo, you think the military (quite possibly ANY military, but definitely the U.S. military) are criminals.

Do I really have to reply to this??

 

[Matteo Martini]

So you called a Canadian an American, then when he (she?) pointed out your error, you said, "I meant American as in living in North America." Now you say they DON'T like to be compared to "estadounidenses." So why did you (a) do it in the first place and (b) stick to it in the second place?

No, is that I did not want to admit I was wrong..

 

[Segnosaur]

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
Civilians reported killed by military intervention in Iraq
Min Max
69284 75723

Considering..

We put accuracy above speed and do not update the data base until we have located and cross-checked two or more independent approved news sources for the same incident (for more details see our Methodology). If you want to submit news stories that could help us confirm an incident involving civilian deaths please email news item weblinks to news@iraqbodycount.org (the more specific and detailed, the better).

Still, your "maximum" count seems very low to me. Surely there must be many, many more civilian deaths than you've published.

The fact that it "seems" low to you doesn't necessarily mean that it is low.

If you go back and look at some of the references that were published by myself and BeAChooser, you'll see references to surveys done by the United Nations that validate the stats from Iraqi Body Count.

We are not a news organization ourselves and like everyone else can only base our information on what has been reported so far. What we are attempting to provide is a credible compilation of civilian deaths that have been reported by recognized sources. Our maximum therefore refers to reported deaths - which can only be a sample of true deaths unless one assumes that every civilian death has been reported. It is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media. That is the sad nature of war

I think that the number of 100000 deaths, could well be an under-estimate..

First of all, if it were open war, then relying on news reports to determine number of deaths would lead to an underestimate. However, we're not dealing with an open war here... Iraq is a society where terrorist and military activies can be reported on freely, and there is more than enough time to verify facts.

Secondly, while verifying facts can cause some deaths to go unreported, it also ensures that there are no 'false' reports either. Remember when the Israeli army went into Jenin? There were initial claims of 'thousands' of civilian deaths. End result? Less than 60. Many of them terrorists.

The fact that you cling to the number of deaths reported by the John Hoskins team despite being contradicted by every other source suggests your willingness to go out of your way to find fault with U.S. actions regarless of how shoddy the evidence.

 

[Segnosaur]

I said that you should not intervene ( in the rape, on in Iraq ), if there was a high risk to make things worse for the victim.
As has happened.
Do you get it?

Yes, I get it... you're the type of person who would allow the rape to continue.

I have posted enough numbers..

Posting numbers is pointless if they come from a non-reputable source.

BTW, that 655000 number was posted in the Washington Post, not in the Gazette of the Scouts of Minneapolis..

Yes, that number was repoted in the Post. Sure it was also published in a hundred other newspapers and TV stations as well. But the fact is, it initially came from one source (i.e. the newspapers were not doing their own studies).

This would not be the first time that some news organization regurgitated information based on science or math without fully comprehending it or doing any sort of background checks.

Secondly, that study has already been referenced AND DEBUNKED by myself and BeAChooser. (See for example my posting on 9th August 2007, 07:59 PM, or BeAChooser's posting on 10th August 2007 at 12:17 AM.)

Ah!
You and Beachoser debuncked it?

Yes we did, by pointing out several flaws with the study, and by referring to other studies which provided contradictory data.

When you first made your claim that there were studies by "other researchers" validating the 655,000 number of dead, you were ignoring the fact that we already dealt with those other studies.

Every case should be handled saperately.

But you haven't even done anything to handle cases that we've specifically pointed out. If you can't handle the cases that we've stated explicitly, then how do you expect to be handle every other case?

Were all military targets placed close to orphanages?

No, some were placed next to power plants. For example, consider this exprience of one of the human shields sent to Iraqi:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...02.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/03/02/ixnewstop.html

Godfrey Meynell, 68, told the two Iraqi factory workers standing before him. His white hair was, as always, unbrushed; his navy windcheater zipped up to the chin. "This power plant is next to a bridge, surrounded by Republican Guard," he continued.

Agreed.
Glad that you consider " support for Saddam in the 80s " as a bad act

Actually, whether support for Saddam was trully a 'bad act' is debatable. Iran was (at the time) considered a greater threat. Its possible that they should have stayed out of the situation, or supported Iraq, but not given as much aid.

And, Germany was right and US was wrong, on Iraq invasion..

No, Germany took an action that you agreed with. That is not necessarly the same as being 'right'.

Do you have any evidence of the 20000-40000/year number?

The estimates of 20,000 to 40,000 are based on an estimate of 500,000 to 1 million deaths caused under Saddam's regime. Some examples include:
-50-100,000 Kurds killed in 1988
- 80-230,000 Kurds and Shia killed in 1991
- Other mass graves have been found that date to times other than 1988 and 1991, indicating such killings were not restricted to those time periods
- Possibly another 30-60,000 "Marsh Arabs" killed
- Between 200,000 and 800,000 Iranians killed in the Iran/Iraq war. (Now, it depends on how much responsibility you assign to Iraq in the conflict; however, it should be noted that Iraq DID initiate hostilities.)
- Various estimates of the number of deaths due to sanctions (which were brought into place to prevent Saddam from causing problems) that range everywhere from thousands to a million. Personally, I think the 100,000 was the most credible. (Now, you may try to argue that those deaths were not Saddam's fault; however, similar sanctions in other countries did not lead to the same number of casulties; PLUS Saddam could have ended the hardship by cooperating with inspections, etc.)
- Not only have people been killed, but there have been many displacements... for example,most remaining Marsh Arabs have been displaced

If you assume the maximum for all of these (and assume that Saddam was fully responsible for the Iran/Iraq war), his death count is around 1.3 million. If you are a bit more conservative (for example, assuming Saddam was only half responsible for the Iran Iraq war and you pick the lower estimate20+5, and only half responsible for deaths due to sanctions) then the number killed ends up being from 300,000 to 540,000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein's_Iraq
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761580640_2/Iran-Iraq_War.html
http://www.reason.com/news/show/28346.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2807821.stm

Do you have any evidence that that number could not be reduced without taking off Saddam?

Yes... we have a decade of experience in Iraq, where military targets were bombed regularly, the U.N. regularly interveigned in Iraq's soverignty, yet human rights abuses continued.

Perhaps you could be a bit more convincing if you actually came up with a plan that looks like it would work, rather than using the magical "There must be a better way" argument.

You said that the US were trying to isolate Saddam for more than a decade..
If it was " more than a decade before the first invasion ", I find it quite unlikely

By 'first invasion', are you referring to the Gulf war of 1991? Because that's not the time frame I was referring to. (After all, that wasn't exactly an "invasion")

I was referring to the time period after 1991, when the U.S. was trying to limit Saddam's power through sanctions and low-level military campaigns, only to see human rights abuses continue.

Did the Canadians got involved with the invasion?

Nope, Canada did not participate in the invasion of Iraq. Thus, any assumption that Canadians automatically harbour the same "imperialistic" mentality as the U.S. is flawed.

So, what you're saying is that the people who are alive today who might have been killed under Saddam do not deserve to live, the people who have more money do not deserve the extra income, and the people who publish newspapers do not deserve the right to free speech.

So, by your argument, its not morally right to stop one 'bad' person if there was a 'worse' person around. So stopping a genocidal dictator who kills 500,000 people is wrong if there is a dictator who's killing 600,000.

I think it is impossible to make such exact comparisons..

But you're the one that said intervention in one case is somehow justified and intervention in another case is not. So where do you draw the line? 1 million dead? 2 million?

So tell me, if you think the U.S. invaded Iraq because of the oil, then I have to ask why? If the U.S. wanted oil, they could have just made a deal with Saddam...

Already replied on this

Sorry, but I do not recall you specifically addressing the possibility that the U.S. could have dealt with Saddam directly if Oil was the main reason for invasion.

Please indicate where and when you addressed the issue.

 

[Darth Rotor]

So, atacking Iraq was a double mistake.

Why double? It may have been enough to be a strategic mistake.

I see..
You only attack countries, which have reliable transportation, and good infrastructure..
LOL!!
I am laughing out loud..

Way to show your base ignorance.

Putting together a massive aid package, or an assistance program is a lot like putting together a large combat operation, in terms of logistic support, with the signal difference being that you don't go in shooting, you go in with truckloads of supplies and support. Leave the ammo at home, most everything else shows up, and it needs petrol.

Sending a peace enforcing team (who may have to back down a warring faction with force, see the British in Gorazde for an example) into a country at war requires all the logistic support to sustain them in their mission, or their mission will fail. Intervention into Rwanda to prevent or stop the civil war would have been A Peace Enforcement Operation which is, from a logistic and preparation perspective, a low grade combat operation. The troops have to be prepared to fight if the faction does not back down as asked/required.

The American military is sent on humanitarian missions every year, for the simple reason that they are trained, equipped, and organized to do big and difficult operations. See the Indonesian Tsunami relief for one example, and a bunch of NEO tasks in Western Africa -- Liberia, Congo, Sierra Leone -- in the 1990's for others. (Google MOOTW and look around.) NEO means Non-combatant Evacuation Operations. The people in it have to be able, at the drop of a hat, switch from a matter of transporting people, to fighting to defend their ability to do so, all to get people out of a war zone.

A few years ago, the US Military ran a relief operation in Pakistan after the big earthquake. Send the troops. When you send them in to do a job, you have to support them, or they can't do their job, even when no shooting is involved.

So, the inability to support a humanitarian mission, along the scope of supporting a million refugees, had a logistics requirement that had to be grown from the ground up.

That is reality, and the reality of logistics, which the standard novice, you, has no grasp of.

DR

 

[Ion]

Why do you speak about Bush, when my questiuon was about Mr. A?

So, you think that Mr. A does, in fact, augure for criminal behaviour?

Because it's a matter of putting things in perspective by priorities.

One -like Iran's President Ahmadinejad- speaks of doing criminal acts.
And Republican Tancredi is in the same class with Ahmadinejad when he speaks about bombing the Mecca.

Another one, Bush, is doing criminal acts.

Priorities in who to stop first.

 

[Matteo Martini]

The fact that it "seems" low to you doesn't necessarily mean that it is low.

If you go back and look at some of the references that were published by myself and BeAChooser, you'll see references to surveys done by the United Nations that validate the stats from Iraqi Body Count.

Ah..
The problem of dealing with people with low IQs..

The sentence

Still, your "maximum" count seems very low to me. Surely there must be many, many more civilian deaths than you've published.

was not written by me, it is in the site of iraqbodycount!!

First of all, if it were open war, then relying on news reports to determine number of deaths would lead to an underestimate. However, we're not dealing with an open war here... Iraq is a society where terrorist and military activies can be reported on freely, and there is more than enough time to verify facts.

The guys at iraqbodycount do not know that.
Please, tell them..

Secondly, while verifying facts can cause some deaths to go unreported, it also ensures that there are no 'false' reports either. Remember when the Israeli army went into Jenin? There were initial claims of 'thousands' of civilian deaths. End result? Less than 60. Many of them terrorists.

I tend to agree.
I do not know why those communist sources such as the Washington Post, wrote today about 175 deaths in Iraq, in one day..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/14/AR2007081401067.html?hpid=topnews
Ah!!
We need to correct some serious misinformation here, we are probably dealing with just one or two wounded terrorists..

The fact that you cling to the number of deaths reported by the John Hoskins team despite being contradicted by every other source suggests your willingness to go out of your way to find fault with U.S. actions regarless of how shoddy the evidence.

The evidence, by definition, can not be " shoddy ".
If it is shoddy, it is not evidence.

 

[Matteo Martini]

Because it's a matter of putting things in perspective by priorities.

One -like Iran's President Ahmadinejad- speaks of doing criminal acts.
And Republican Tancredi is in the same class with Ahmadinejad when he speaks about bombing the Mecca.

Another one, Bush, is doing criminal acts.

Priorities in who to stop first.

Wait one sec..

First of all, what about Saddam..

He did do criminal acts, did not he?

Secondly, you seem to forget that, George W. ( or Olmert ), could order the total desctruction of Iran tomorrow morning.
They are not doing that.
How can be sure that, Mr. A, if he gets a nuke, would not bomb Israel or the US?

Third, you say that Mr. A is not a criminal, but, please, look at the human rights situation in Iran..

 

[Matteo Martini]

Yes, I get it... you're the type of person who would allow the rape to continue.

Only if I am the guy who is raping her..

Posting numbers is pointless if they come from a non-reputable source.

I agree with you.
The Washington Post is just a bunch of Communists..

Yes, that number was repoted in the Post. Sure it was also published in a hundred other newspapers and TV stations as well. But the fact is, it initially came from one source (i.e. the newspapers were not doing their own studies).

But, before publishing them, they validate them, uh?
Second, you have the site www.iraqbodycount.com which, as I say, validates the hypotesis of 100000+ deaths..

This would not be the first time that some news organization regurgitated information based on science or math without fully comprehending it or doing any sort of background checks.

They probably did not ask you first, that is why..

Yes we did, by pointing out several flaws with the study, and by referring to other studies which provided contradictory data.

But, your conclusions were not posted in the Post, or in any other newspaper.
Can not see why..
Why?

When you first made your claim that there were studies by "other researchers" validating the 655,000 number of dead, you were ignoring the fact that we already dealt with those other studies.

www.iraqbodycount.org

But you haven't even done anything to handle cases that we've specifically pointed out. If you can't handle the cases that we've stated explicitly, then how do you expect to be handle every other case?

You can not expect to have a strategy before knowing exactly what the problem is. To whom an I speaking to?

No, some were placed next to power plants.

What about the others?

Actually, whether support for Saddam was trully a 'bad act' is debatable. Iran was (at the time) considered a greater threat. Its possible that they should have stayed out of the situation, or supported Iraq, but not given as much aid.

Now I see why so many Iranians are on the of Mr. A..

No, Germany took an action that you agreed with. That is not necessarly the same as being 'right'.

More right than the US?

The estimates of 20,000 to 40,000 are based on an estimate of 500,000 to 1 million deaths caused under Saddam's regime. Some examples include:
-50-100,000 Kurds killed in 1988
- 80-230,000 Kurds and Shia killed in 1991
- Other mass graves have been found that date to times other than 1988 and 1991, indicating such killings were not restricted to those time periods
- Possibly another 30-60,000 "Marsh Arabs" killed
- Between 200,000 and 800,000 Iranians killed in the Iran/Iraq war. (Now, it depends on how much responsibility you assign to Iraq in the conflict; however, it should be noted that Iraq DID initiate hostilities.)

With the help of the US..

- Various estimates of the number of deaths due to sanctions (which were brought into place to prevent Saddam from causing problems) that range everywhere from thousands to a million. Personally, I think the 100,000 was the most credible. (Now, you may try to argue that those deaths were not Saddam's fault; however, similar sanctions in other countries did not lead to the same number of casulties; PLUS Saddam could have ended the hardship by cooperating with inspections, etc.)
- Not only have people been killed, but there have been many displacements... for example,most remaining Marsh Arabs have been displaced

The most parts of the deaths above could have been avoided if some nations ( US included ) did not sell any gun to Saddam.
But, you are too ideologically involved, to realize this..

If you assume the maximum for all of these (and assume that Saddam was fully responsible for the Iran/Iraq war), his death count is around 1.3 million. If you are a bit more conservative (for example, assuming Saddam was only half responsible for the Iran Iraq war and you pick the lower estimate20+5, and only half responsible for deaths due to sanctions) then the number killed ends up being from 300,000 to 540,000.

See above

Yes... we have a decade of experience in Iraq, where military targets were bombed regularly, the U.N. regularly interveigned in Iraq's soverignty, yet human rights abuses continued.

Fortunately, now, since soon after the invasion, the human right situation has greatly improved..

Perhaps you could be a bit more convincing if you actually came up with a plan that looks like it would work, rather than using the magical "There must be a better way" argument.

I have already written of various ways to deal with the problem.

By 'first invasion', are you referring to the Gulf war of 1991?

Yes

Because that's not the time frame I was referring to.
(After all, that wasn't exactly an "invasion")

I was referring to the time period after 1991, when the U.S. was trying to limit Saddam's power through sanctions and low-level military campaigns, only to see human rights abuses continue.

I do not think there has been over one million deaths after 1991

Nope, Canada did not participate in the invasion of Iraq. Thus, any assumption that Canadians automatically harbour the same "imperialistic" mentality as the U.S. is flawed.

That was my point

But you're the one that said intervention in one case is somehow justified and intervention in another case is not. So where do you draw the line? 1 million dead? 2 million?

No.
Could the case be handled in a better way?
Was the invasion of Iraq really necessary?
Why the US invaded Iran and not Rwanda?
Was the invasion of Rwanda necessary?

Sorry, but I do not recall you specifically addressing the possibility that the U.S. could have dealt with Saddam directly if Oil was the main reason for invasion.

Please indicate where and when you addressed the issue.

No time to do search.
Anyway, I do not think the issue is very important.

 

[Matteo Martini]

Why double? It may have been enough to be a strategic mistake.

Way to show your base ignorance.

Putting together a massive aid package,

[..]

That is reality, and the reality of logistics, which the standard novice, you, has no grasp of.

DR

You know quite a lot, and you know nothing..
I will never believe that the intervention in Rwanda was held back for logistic problems.
That is an excuse.

 

[BeAChooser]

BTW, that 655000 number was posted in the Washington Post

That still doesn't make it correct, for all the reasons I noted and that you simply ignored.

And don't think that readers didn't notice you ignoring those reasons.

 

[BeAChooser]

Second, you have the site www.iraqbodycount.com which, as I say, validates the hypotesis of 100000+ deaths..

This is misleading. When papers published the John Hopkins report claiming 100,000 deaths, IBC was claiming far fewer. And I posted what IBC wrote regarding John Hopkin's 655,000 death claim. They don't AT ALL validate what you've been claiming.

 

[Matteo Martini]

That still doesn't make it correct, for all the reasons I noted and that you simply ignored.

And don't think that readers didn't notice you ignoring those reasons.

This is all the evidence we have:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_conflict_in_Iraq_since_2003

The Iraq Body Count (IBC) project's figure of 69,045 to 75,495 civilian deaths reported in English-language media (including Arabic media translated into English) up to 12 August 2007 includes civilian deaths due to coalition and insurgent military action, sectarian violence and increased criminal violence. The IBC says the figure likely underestimates because: "It is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media."[2]
The Lancet study's figure of 654,965 excess deaths is based on surveys and sampling methods, and 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 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%).[3]

The United Nations reported that 34,452 violent deaths occurred in 2006, based on data from morgues, hospitals, and municipal authorities across Iraq.[4] For comparison, the IBC reports approximately 24,500 civilian deaths in 2006.[5] The Lancet study's excess mortality rate figure of 14.2 deaths/1000/year as of June 2006 corresponds to approximately 370,000 deaths in 2006.[6]

A figure of 100,000 to 150,000 was estimated by Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari in a November 2006 press conference, based on extrapolating the recent 2006 rate of 100 deaths per day recorded in hospitals and morgues backward to March 2003. War-related deaths (civilian and non-civilian), and deaths from criminal gangs.[7][8]

"At least 50,000 Iraqis have died violently"—as of June 2006. "Many more Iraqis are believed to have been killed but not counted because of serious lapses in recording deaths. ... The [Los Angeles] Times attempted to reach a comprehensive figure by obtaining statistics from the Baghdad morgue and the Health Ministry and checking those numbers against a sampling of local health departments for possible undercounts."[9]

Please, read all, and tell me where you can read that the total number of daeths can be lower than 100000

 

[Matteo Martini]

This is misleading. When papers published the John Hopkins report claiming 100,000 deaths, IBC was claiming far fewer. And I posted what IBC wrote regarding John Hopkin's 655,000 death claim. They don't AT ALL validate what you've been claiming.

You did not read what I wrote, and I am getting tired..

 

[BeAChooser]

The Lancet study's figure of 654,965 excess deaths is based on surveys and sampling methods

First of all, it isn't the Lancet's study. The Lancet only published the study (curious how the authors had to go to another country to get it published).

Second, that study is flawed for all the reasons that have been pointed out (and more). That you won't even discuss those reasons suggests you don't really care about the validity of the methods. You just like the result.

A figure of 100,000 to 150,000 was estimated by Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari in a November 2006

That was more than TWO YEARS after the original John Hopkins study claiming 100,000 excess deaths. And even then, estimates are dime a dozen. Did the health minister actually provide anything to back up his estimate? No.

But here's some evidence (that you ignored) that the John Hopkins study is bogus. According to the second John Hopkins report, 87 percent of those who claimed deaths were asked to prove it by providing death certificates. According to the researchers, they just forgot to ask the other 13 percent. And of those 87 percent, 92 percent (501 out of 545) were able to provide death certificates. Therefore, if the study is statistically valid, there should be death certificates available for about 92 percent of the total 655,000 estimated dead. But investigations by media sources that are not friendly to the Bush administration or the war did not find evidence of anywhere near that number. The Los Angeles Times, for example, in a comprehensive investigation found less than 50,000 certificates. Let me repeat what one of the authors of the LATimes story, Borzou Daragahi, said in an interview with PBS "the Los Angeles Times thinks these numbers are too large, depending on the extensive research we've done. Earlier this year, around June, the report was published at least in June, but the reporting was done over weeks earlier. We went to morgues, cemeteries, hospitals, health officials, and we gathered as many statistics as we could on the actual dead bodies, and the number we came up with around June was about at least 50,000. And that kind of jibed with some of the news report that were out there, the accumulation of news reports, in terms of the numbers kill. The U.N. says that there's about 3,000 a month being killed; that also fits in with our numbers and with morgue numbers. This number of 600,000 or more killed since the beginning of the war, it's way off our charts." So in order to take the Johns Hopkins' results seriously, you have to believe that the Iraqi government recorded deaths occurring since the invasion with an accuracy of 92 percent, but then suppressed the bulk of those deaths when releasing official figures, with no one blowing the whistle. And you have to believe that all those dead bodies went unnoticed by the mainstream media and everyone else trying to keep track of the war casualties. Alternatively, you have to believe that the Iraqi government only issues death certificates for a small percentage of deaths, but this random sample happened to score 92 percent by pure chance. Or you have to believe that doctors issued death certificates without telling any authorities when so far NOT ONE Iraqi doctor has come forward to say he did that. Every one of those possibilities is ridiculous. So why do you insist on spreading this woo? Because you don't care about the truth?

 

[BeAChooser]

You did not read what I wrote, and I am getting tired..

I read what you wrote. This started when you first cited the 655,000 death study and then when didn't fly threw out this:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1028-08.htm
100,000 Excess Iraqi Deaths Since War - Study
And, that was 2004..

You weren't talking about 100,000 NOW, you were claiming 100,000 back in 2004.

 

[Oliver]

Jesus, what is the Argument here? That it's outrageous to kill 3000 people but fine to kill ABOUT XXX,XXX citizens???

My point simply is that in case if Iraq - every casualty as a result of the WMD-Propaganda, is manslaughter and should be prosecuted this way - instead whining about Gonzales, White House Prostitute-Affairs or Libby.