Yahoo: Study: 655,000 Iraqis die because of war!
 

Study: 655,000 Iraqis die because of war
By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer2 hours, 50 minutes ago

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061011/...aqi_death_toll

A controversial new study contends nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war, suggesting a far higher death toll than other estimates.
The timing of the survey's release, just a few weeks before the U.S. congressional elections, led one expert to call it "politics."
In the new study, researchers attempt to calculate how many more Iraqis have died since March 2003 than one would expect without the war. Their conclusion, based on interviews of households and not a body count, is that about 600,000 died from violence, mostly gunfire. They also found a small increase in deaths from other causes like heart disease and cancer.
"Deaths are occurring in Iraq now at a rate more than three times that from before the invasion of March 2003," Dr. Gilbert Burnham, lead author of the study, said in a statement.
The study by Burnham, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and others is to be published Thursday on the Web site of The Lancet, a medical journal.
An accurate count of Iraqi deaths has been difficult to obtain, but one respected group puts its rough estimate at closer to 50,000. And at least one expert was skeptical of the new findings.
"They're almost certainly way too high," said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. He criticized the way the estimate was derived and noted that the results were released shortly before the Nov. 7 election.
"This is not analysis, this is politics," Cordesman said.
The work updates an earlier Johns Hopkins study ? that one was released just before the November 2004 presidential election. At the time, the lead researcher, Les Roberts of Hopkins, said the timing was deliberate. Many of the same researchers were involved in the latest estimate.
Speaking of the new study, Burnham said the estimate was much higher than others because it was derived from a house-to-house survey rather than approaches that depend on body counts or media reports.
A private group called Iraqi Body Count, for example, says it has recorded about 44,000 to 49,000 civilian Iraqi deaths. But it notes that those totals are based on media reports, which it says probably overlook "many if not most civilian casualties."
For Burnham's study, researchers gathered data from a sample of 1,849 Iraqi households with a total of 12,801 residents from late May to early July. That sample was used to extrapolate the total figure. The estimate deals with deaths up to July.
The survey participants attributed about 31 percent of violent deaths to coalition forces.
Accurate death tolls have been difficult to obtain ever since the Iraq conflict began in March 2003. When top Iraqi political officials cite death numbers, they often refuse to say where the numbers came from.
The Health Ministry, which tallies civilian deaths, relies on reports from government hospitals and morgues. The Interior Ministry compiles its figures from police stations, while the Defense Ministry reports deaths only among army soldiers and insurgents killed in combat.
The United Nations keeps its own count, based largely on reports from the Baghdad morgue and the Health Ministry.
The major funder of the new study was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

stupid terrorist.

lolll

2345

:( so sad to see these numbers :(

Will humanity ever make it to the time when all life is valued?

:disgust

what a silly poll to even speculate on in my opinion yahoo should be ashamed of themselves for publishing that..

The numbers are based on interviews lol, of course everyone and their cousin is going to say they had 50 brothers that were killed..

I bet if you polled americans and asked them the same questions they would come up with the same numbers here..

tough bet... are you stupid? Who the hell will lie that he has 50 killed brothers? Or you are just trying to excuse your government for being the biggest terrorist ever?

http://www.iraqbodycount.org

Srsly.. Im just gonna keep my yap shut on this one. :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

this figure is too bad.

FUCKING WAR
FUCKING OIL

Welcome to yesterday.

Guess what they didn't ask. Were the people killed fighters or civillians? Odd thing to leave out.

Also 31% were said to be killed by Coalition forces. Guess who killed the rest.

The OP got pretty well owned, IMO.

And to think we still have Korea to look forward too...

You're hoping for the impossible.

peaceful muslims killing peaceful muslims.

Holleeee shit. That does it - I'm going to stop taunting you. The rest of SI is still in my sights, though. :thumbsup

It was an Associated Press piece. I doubt anyone at Yahoo manually picks and chooses the articles from a source feed.

Of course when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology does such research after epidemics or natural disasters they are widely accepted and respected but when it comes to the war on terror they are lying left-wing wackos with a vendetta against GW:winkwink:

these are bogus numbers, tin foil hat time

im going to have to go with no..
i think i mentioned that in my post you quoted but apparently didnt read ?

I wasnt aware honduras was considered "the biggest terrorist ever" , news to me.. but yes your right i'm busted, i was trying to cover that fact up.. whoops now the secret is out , hondurans are all huge terrorists..:1orglaugh

Instead of going off half cocked you should try reading what is written, you wont look so silly..

I dont support the iraq war, many people have been killed. none of that means creating bullshit stats is ok..

You cant poll less than 2000 houses and extrapolate those numbers accurately for a full country' s death count

my booty itches

i didnt hear anyone mention that.. :2 cents:

The stats werent done properly , just because they did polls before that were accurate doesnt mean that every poll they do is accurate..

They polled less than 2000 households to come up with those numbers.. i.e. no proof no bodies etc... not a very reliable source..