Iraq Body Count

Iraq Body Count does not include casualty estimates or projections in its database. It only includes individual or cumulative deaths as directly reported by the media or tallied by official bodies (for instance, by hospitals, morgues and, in a few cases so far, NGOs), and subsequently reported in the media. In other words, each entry in the Iraq Body Count data base represents deaths which have actually been recorded by appropriate witnesses - not "possible" or even "probable" deaths.

The Lancet study's headline figure of "100,000" excess deaths is a probabilistic projection from a small number of reported deaths - most of them from aerial weaponry - in a sample of 988 households to the entire Iraqi population. Only those actual, war-related deaths could be included in our count. Because the researchers did not ask relatives whether the male deaths were military or civilian the civilian proportion in the sample is unknown (despite the Lancet website's front-page headline "100,000 excess civilian deaths after Iraq invasion", [link] the authors clearly state that "many" of the dead in their sample may have been combatants [P.7]). Iraq Body Count only includes reports where there are feasible methods of distinguishing military from civilian deaths (most of the uncertainty that remains in our own count - the difference between our reported Minimum and Maximum - arises from this issue). Our count is purely a civilian count.

... We have always been quite explicit that our own total is certain to be an underestimate of the true position, because of gaps in reporting or recording.

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com/2004_10_31_dissectleft_archive.html

ELSEWHERE

Much has been made of an article in The Lancet (summary reproduced here) which estimates that there have been more than 100,000 deaths in Iraq that were due to the invasion. Various conservative writers have criticized the study and various Leftists (e.g. here) have replied. Nobody, however, seems to have commented on the fact that the findings were a product of cluster sampling. The major fault I see with the study is that estimating low-incidence phenomena via cluster samples is inherently dodgy. I have had many findings derived from cluster samples reported in the academic journals so I know a little bit about it. You just have to get one or two clusters being a-typical (either by chance or intentionally) to arrive at totally distorted results. Basing such an important conclusion on a sample-size of only 33 is really quite ludicrous. I have used as few as 10 clusters in some of my surveys but I was concerned only to find whether some effect existed at all. I was not trying to estimate it precisely. All that aside, however, who doubts that wars kill people? And who doubts that the deaths in a war have to be offset against the deaths that might otherwise have occured if the war were not fought? If you believe that such offsetting should not be done, you would also have to say that Britain should have said "We surrender" to Hitler.

And

"Why We Are In Iraq"

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=16103

Here's some thoughts for those of you who might want to know about the Iraqi civilian body count:

The guy who runs the iraq body count webpage, also ran a similar count for Afghanistan where he said the number of civilian deaths was over 3000. He was proven wrong (by about 2000) in an independent analysis performed by numerous sources, including the Los Angeles Times. He uses dubious techniques and sources for his numbers.

As the website states: "The minimum can be zero if there is a report of 'zero deaths' from two of our sources. 'Unable to confirm any deaths' or similar wording (as in an official statement) does NOT amount to a report of zero, and will NOT lead to an entry of '0' in the minimum column." In other words, suppose the Iraqi Information Minister said, "Today the imperialist aggressors slaughtered 300 innocent Iraqi children." Reputable news outlets will report what the Minister said, while simultaneously reporting that they were unable to confirm it and that the Pentagon was unable to confirm it. But the Pentagon will only rarely be able to say with certainty that the incident did not happen, or that no innocent civilians died--the fog of war is often too thick, and the Pentagon, unlike the (former) Iraqi Information Minister, does not want to make false statements. So, instead, it will say that it was "unable to confirm" the reports. And the result? The Iraq Body Count Project will add 300 to both its minimum and its maximum counts.

For example, here are two entries from the Project's database, (1) the explosions in the Al-Shaab marketplace in Baghdad on March 26 and (2) the Al-Nasser marketplace in Baghdad on March 28. For (1), the Project lists a minimum of 14 and a maximum of 15 civilian deaths caused by coalition action; for (2), the numbers are 34 and 62. But anyone who reads the papers knows that the U.S. and British governments claim that, in both these instances, Iraq--either intentionally or mistakenly--caused those explosions itself. By refusing to put zero in the minimum column, the Project again privileges Iraqi government sources over Western ones.

A few other points:

1. The stated mission of the project is: "This is a human security project to establish an independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq resulting directly from military actions by the USA and its allies in 2003."

Oh really, that's the reason? Right. The table displayed at the Body Count site shows numerous examples of weapons listed as causing civilian deaths as "car bomb", "roadside bomb", "suicide car bomb", and even "roadside bomb camouflaged with vegetables and a soda can". No one in his right mind could imagine that the US or its allies could have directly caused these "deaths" based upon the recorded information. Clearly those are Iraqi-on-Iraqi deaths not caused by the US. Again, it's propaganda from a site meant to fool the BOOBS that frequent it.

2. Then there's a batch entry that lists well over a thousand deaths at once. The site's description for this was: "60 per cent from gunshot wounds." But moved off into a separate file was this description: "about 60% and above of these deaths are the result of gunshot wounds; this compares to approximately 10% pre-war. People killed by coalition forces amount to an estimated 15-20% of gunshot victims brought to the morgue according to a Newsweek report, but most of the violence is Iraqi-on-Iraqi." So here is an acknowledgment that less than a quarter of these people were actually killed by coalition forces, if at all, yet all the deaths are lumped together anyway. And do we know how many of these were actually civilians, as opposed to terrorists playing dressup... and would the person gleefully adding these numbers even care? All that seems to matter to them is that the 60% is higher than the reported pre-war decimation already taking place under Saddam. More fodder for the fools who read that site and believe it.

3. The tagline for the site is: “We don’t do body counts”
as stated by General Tommy Franks, US Central Command. This was a statement made by Tommy Franks during Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, not Iraq. In fact, he was referring to the dubious military body counts that the US used during the Vietnam war, and stating that the US would not count military opposition dead. His statement had nothing to do with Iraq and nothing to do with civilians. In fact, the US does not target civilians and would have no idea what the accidental deaths were. Again, however, the Body Count site claims to be omniscient by knowing the true numbers based on news stories. It's more BS that the left clings to in their fantasy land occupied by anti-war nuts and tin-hat wearers.

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