Lancet Iraq Study Update – Moon of Alabama

February 17, 2007

Lancet Iraq Study Update

The second study (pdf) on mortality in Iraq after the U.S. led invasion was published last October in the venerable medical journal Lancet.

The authors’ major conclusion was this:

We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654.965 (392.979–942.636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2-5% of the population in the study area.

Wikipedia discusses criticisms and defenses of the study.

The study calculated excess death, by comparing mortality in Iraq before the invasion and in various periods after the invasion.

Pre-invasion: 5.5 deaths/1,000/year
March 2003-April 2004: 7.5 deaths/1,000/year
May 2004-May 2005: 10.9 deaths/1,000/year
June 2005-June 2006: 19.8 deaths/1,000/year

As we have not seen a significant decrease of violence in Iraq since the last period covered in the study, it should be valid to extrapolate the numbers.

The excess death in the last study period are 14.3/1,000/year or 1.192/1,000/month. The total calculations are based on a pre-war population of 26 million. As some 1.5 million Iraqis have fled the country, (with another 1 million expected to be displaced this year,) the lower base leads to some 29,200 per month dying in Iraq of war-related causes. Additionally to the study’s number of 650,000 by now another 220,000 have died. By end of June 2007 the estimated number of war-related dead will have exceeded 1,000,000.

Posted by b on February 17, 2007 at 16:21 UTC | Permalink

Comments

If I recall correctly, one of Blair’s more morally repugnant statements prior to the invasion was that at least the number of people that would die as a result would be less than the number that died under Saddam’s rule. At this rate, it will not be too long before he is wrong on that count as well. Tony, if you are reading, for future reference the correct formulation of such a “justification” is: The number of people that will die as a result of the invasion will be less than the number that will die if we do not invade. Unfortunately in the case of Iraq, you failed in that bloody milestone several years ago.

Posted by: det | Feb 17 2007 17:26 utc | 1

This war has already killed more Iraqis than Saddam did – and will soon pass the total number of people killed by Saddam.

Posted by: Susan | Feb 17 2007 21:00 utc | 2

No matter how you look at it the Iraqi population is being decimated. In terms of deaths in the country, those who have left, the numbers are staggering.
Then there are all the internally displaced, the imprisoned, and all the rest soon to suffer or perish: medical care, schooling, research and education, agriculture, water pipes, traffic, security, energy distribution, etc. etc. all smashed; the time bombs of arms awash all over, depleted uranium, mines, and so on…
More checkpoints, more bombing, more arrests, more break ins, more surveillance, more crackdowns, more forced moving of people, will accomplish only one thing: more deaths, more destruction. See B’s post above this one.
The notions of ethnic strife, control of the ‘insurgency’, the war against terrorism, the march to democracy, Iraqi Sovereignty, are Fox News fig leaves.
The resemblance to what was done, is being done, to the Palestinians is uncanny. What about a road map or a peace process? Sounds good! Imprisoning suicide bombers before they act is mandatory.
Can the model work on a country of 25 million people? The short answer is Yes. But to accomplish what exactly?

Posted by: Noirette | Feb 17 2007 23:08 utc | 3

Quote:
More checkpoints, more bombing, more arrests, more break ins, more surveillance, more crackdowns, more forced moving of people, will accomplish only one thing: more deaths, more destruction. See B’s post above this one.
—
I agree with you on everything

Posted by: vbo | Feb 17 2007 23:49 utc | 4

Allow me to link to this article one more time:

Iraq: The Genocide Option
By Edward Herman
(snip)
The U.S. attack on Vietnam may be termed the “Genocide Option,” as the killing and destruction went far beyond anything that took place in El Salvador, and threatened the survival of the southern population. Southern Vietnam had its U.S.-organized death squads, with Operation Phoenix famously accounting for possibly 40,000 assassinations of NLF cadres and unknown other victims of this murder program.
El Salvador also had impressive death squads, but couldn’t match the scope and intensity of the violence wrought by the United States on the distant peasant society, which brought into play all weapons in the U.S. high-tech arsenal short of the nuclear-many being tested against live experimental victims–used in enormous volume, without moral restraint (and with minimal protest from the “international community”).
(snip)
There can be little doubt that the rate of civilian killing in Iraq is about to rise from something like the recent Lancet estimate of 655,000 to a larger figure. If “genocide” was committed in Bosnia, where recent establishment analysts concluded–embarrassingly, given the earlier institutionalized total of 250,000– that approximately 100,000 people died on all sides, including military personnel, surely we have a case of genocide in Iraq just during the period 2003-2006.
(snip)

Posted by: Alamet | Feb 18 2007 0:01 utc | 5

i am with b & alamet on this
this illegal war is nothing other than a war of anhilation not only of a people but also of a culture
the crimes of the united states in iraq & the shame that will follow from it will last a thousand years

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 18 2007 2:34 utc | 6

& for all the bullshit they talk – the united states has not once of care for a civil society
for example in all this time the u s has not given one book to the education system of iraq, not one fucking book – they don’t even paint the fucking classrooms – a pen has become a rare thing for the children of iraq
no pens or pencil but plenty of bombs & bullets
by the time the bombs & bullets end there will be no need for pens & pencils
it is a horror story that with each day worsens at the most basic & at the most profound level

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 18 2007 2:44 utc | 7

& at the most basic level it is a question of skin, & of bones & of blood

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 18 2007 3:43 utc | 8

What can I say? I remember past Saturday evenings that the Barflies would at least turn off from the horrors for a reprieve, but things have been so bad for so long that it has totally affected the mood here at Moon of Alabama. I guess just like with the Iraqi’s, you think it can’t get any worse – but it does and it does, again and again.
Stop! Stop! Stop! The world, as a community, needs to dance, just a little. Pretty soon, we will forget how.

Posted by: Rick | Feb 18 2007 7:57 utc | 9

The world, as a community, needs to dance, just a little.
rick, i can only speak for myself of course but i seems to me know one is going to be dancing on the eve of the surge. either the place will erupt or remain relatively quiet with many of the fighters having left baghdad for the time being or laying very low, allowing the city to be carved up w/concrete barriers, check points everywhere, martial law, ready to settle into a monitored palestinian exicstence.
it is hideous. no, i won’t be dancing anytime soon.

Posted by: annie | Feb 18 2007 9:30 utc | 10

r’giap,
Of course the U.S. has’nt an ounce of care for civil society, especially children. Here in the U.S. between 7% – 28% children, on a state to state basis live in poverty. This in a country where both parties pander votes pleeding it’s “for the children” as Bill Mahr used to say. What we see in Iraq is “no child left behind” on crack. Come to think of it, I’ll bet bush or rove came up with that name after reading the “left behind” books, as in get on board or you’ll be “left behind”.

Posted by: anna missed | Feb 18 2007 9:38 utc | 11

@Rick
Agreed. Too much emphasis on bad news can make one lose hope. There is always hope for the future. History shows us that empires always fail, evil men and women, no matter how powerful, die just like the rest of us and (I believe) face judgement even if they escape it in this life.
This too shall pass… One way or the other, foreign armies will have to leave Iraq, it will rebuild, and there will be laughter instead of mourning in the streets of Baghdad once again. May that day come sooner rather than later.

Posted by: Anonymous | Feb 18 2007 19:13 utc | 12

At the morgue
(snip)
Now begins a horror that surpasses anything I could have possibly envisioned .We were led away, and before long a foul stench clogged my nose and I retched. With no more warning we came to a clearing that was probably an inside garden at one time; all round it were patios and rooms with large-pane windows to catch the evening breeze Baghdad is renowned for. But now it had become a slaughterhouse, only instead of cattle, all around were human bodies. On this side; complete bodies; on that side halves; and EVERYWHERE body parts.
We were asked what we were looking for, “upper half” replied my companion, for I was rendered speechless. “Over there”. We looked for our boy’s broken body between tens of other boys’ remains’; with our bare hands sifting them and turning them.
We found him millennia later, took both parts home, and began the mourning ceremony.
Can Hollywood match our reality?? I doubt it.

(Found via American Footprints)

Posted by: Alamet | Feb 18 2007 23:56 utc | 13

for the empire of the united states – all deaths of the ‘other’ – are fetishized out of existence – because deeply they have no existence for them
there can be morgues full of people in each & every city of iraq – there can be villages empty of all except the dead & the empire cares not not one whit
they are the neverending dead of the end of the empire
the only time the dead worry the empire is when they are provisionally alive & constituting whatever is concrete oppossition to it
when the armies of the empire face defeat as they are today – the ideologues at the pentagon & at their whore press are deeply worried
& while iraq is being washed in blood they are trying to sell their new ‘project’ as a victory but the people of iraq know better, & they know who to depend on, & they know who will be therewhen the empire has taken all it can

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 19 2007 0:20 utc | 14

“off to a good start”
“reason for new optimism”
says the monster condaleeza rice
they are completely fucking mad

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 19 2007 0:33 utc | 15

White House spokesman Tony Snow told CNN he disagrees with Reid’s characterization.
“In point of fact, it was important to get Saddam Hussein out of power,” Snow told “Late Edition.”
“Yeah, the war is tough. But the solution is not to get out. It is to provide the kinds of resources and reinforcements our forces need to get the job done, and at the same time say to the Iraqis, ‘You guys gotta step up.'”
they are completely & utterly fucking mad

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 19 2007 0:37 utc | 16

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