Anyone have evidence to prove Bush's claim about deaths in Iraq?

[timotheeeee]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I said there have been far more extensive studies done, using like minded methodologies, and in some cases, more precise methods (such as counting bodies that come into morgues, etc), and they have all arrived at numbers FAR different than this one.

Whose to say this study is right, and all those other estimates are wrong?

[/ QUOTE ]

Citation/links to other studies, please.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't hold your breath.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/me...ths/index.html

[ QUOTE ]
President Bush slammed the report Wednesday during a news conference in the White House Rose Garden. "I don't consider it a credible report. Neither does Gen. (George) Casey," he said, referring to the top ranking U.S. military official in Iraq, "and neither do Iraqi officials."

"The methodology is pretty well discredited," he added.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

This OP starts off with a logical fallacy. The burden of proof is on the party making the claim, not on the party disputing it. The OP chooses to frame it upside down, "here's our claim, do you have any evidence to prove we're wrong?"

[Utah]

Is it just me or is Bush hedging here? He did not say, "This is a flat out lie" or "completely ridiculous". He said, "I don't consider it a credible report. Neither does Gen. (George) Casey". To me, that leaves an out in case it is proven to be correct. The same goes for, "The methodology is pretty well discredited". That is a weak statement.

Also, I find is silly for anyone to claim that Bush and Co. is not responsible for the deaths because it is Iraqi v. Iraqi. If you start a freakin war and people die in the chain of events you are responsible. Note, I was moderately for going to war, think there were benefits realized, and think that the war isn't going nearly as badly as people think. I have no anti-war slant. There is simply no denying that Bush isnt responsible for the deaths. Now, one could theoretically argue: the deaths were justified, the incremental total of deaths versus Saddam in power is negative/minimal/smaller, there are less deaths long term, the deaths were unavoidable, etc.

However, it is nonsensical to argue that Bush is not the cause.

[WordWhiz]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Polls of 1000 people can accurately predict presidential elections in which 50 million people vote.


[/ QUOTE ]

"Gore wins Florida" and "Dewey defeats Truman" say hello.

Polls are very accurate, but not 100%. Notice that even in the two examples you provided--one of which you had to go back 50 years to get--the polls were not necessarily wrong. If the poll has Gore winning Florida 49-47, with a 3% margin of error, and he actually loses Florida by 537 votes, the poll was right. Even if the poll is 50-46, the 3% margin of error is only a 95% confidence interval. Show me a poll in which a candidate was winning 60-40 the whole time, and lost 65-35, and we'll talk.


[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
to guffaw at this study as though there's no way you could possibly get useful info without interviewing every single Iraqi is quite silly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is *that* what your strawman said? Because it sure isn't what *I* said.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're right; that's not what you said. I didn't mean to construct a strawman, just point out that a study isn't necessarily inaccurate because of extrapolation from a small sample.

You are apparently aware of other studies on the Iraqi death toll that use a different methodology and reach far different results. I am interested in seeing them.

Bush has put the count at around 30,000, which seems quite low given the fact that iraqibodycount.org has 45,000, and it is by far the strictest methodology, essentially only counting identified victims (and thus reaching by far the lowest totals of any study so far).

[sam h]

[ QUOTE ]
From the 93 deaths they recorded in their sampling as being violent deaths caused by coalition forces, they extrapolated, calculated, compounded, matriculated, and did whatever else "experts" do, and came up with 654,000 deaths to put in the headlines.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are misinterpreting the actual inference in the study, which is not based on the number of deaths attributed to coalition forces but instead on the mortality rates post and pre-invasion in the sample.

More importantly, however, you clearly just simply have no clue about survey research (or the meaning of the word matriculated).

[ QUOTE ]
I almost picture the guy doing this study putting his pinky in his mouth and saying "From these 93 violent deaths at coalition hands, we estimate ONE THOUSAND...no...no...ONE MILLION DEATHS!"

[/ QUOTE ]

The reason you are getting this mental picture is because you have no idea what you are talking about.

[ QUOTE ]

They spent a grand total of 21 days this summer collecting this survey data and related death certificates for the 629 deaths, and using their methodology arrived at a number 6+ times higher than all previous estimates, including those gathered by the Iraq Ministry in cooperation with Iraqi morgues and hospitals, Iraq Body Count, and numerous media reports...not to mention a handful of previous similar surveys by other groups.

[/ QUOTE ]

That you would critique the study on the basis of the number of days it took to collect the data really reinforces how little you know about these things.

[sam h]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/me...ths/index.html

[ QUOTE ]
President Bush slammed the report Wednesday during a news conference in the White House Rose Garden. "I don't consider it a credible report. Neither does Gen. (George) Casey," he said, referring to the top ranking U.S. military official in Iraq, "and neither do Iraqi officials."

"The methodology is pretty well discredited," he added.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

This OP starts off with a logical fallacy. The burden of proof is on the party making the claim, not on the party disputing it. The OP chooses to frame it upside down, "here's our claim, do you have any evidence to prove we're wrong?"

[/ QUOTE ]

There is no logical fallacy. Both the Hopkins people and Bush (in the past) have made claims about the number of deaths in Iraq, and it is perfectly reasonable for one side to ask the other about their evidence.

Your position makes it seem like we should accept the lower numbers as prima facie true and only evaluate the claim of higher numbers.

[Nepa]

[ QUOTE ]
Chris, the study concludes that the US is responsible for 31% of those casualties....who the hell is killing the other 69%?

Insurgents?

That's almost 450,000+ deaths being attributed to someone other than coalition forces. I have a hard time believing the insurgents have been that active.

[/ QUOTE ]

The other 69 percent are insurgents and other ways that people die. ie. heart attacts, stroke, old age.

[lozen]

Yeah and Bush has a lot of credibility

[kurto]

[ QUOTE ]
"I don't consider it a credible report."

[/ QUOTE ]

How is this different then any other report that Bush discredits because he doesn't like what it says? Global warming, any evidence that Saddam didn't have WOMD, etc.

[Seether]

Without some sort of evidence that the locations they chose to conduct their surveys are truely representative of Iraq as a whole the numbers dont really mean anything. If someone wanted to bias higher numbers simply take your samples from areas you know are hot spots for fighting. While you can slant the numbers lower by selecting more tame regions. 80% of statistics are made up on the spot, you can get the numbers to say basically whatever you want them to.