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

[zgall1]

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 ]

[RedBean]

In their sampling, they recorded 629 actual total deaths, 82 of those that occured prior to the invasion, and 327 of the 629 deaths were "non-violent".

Of the 302 recorded violent deaths, they attributed 31%, or 93 deaths to coalition forces.

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.

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!"



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.

All political machinations aside, for anyone to look at this report objectively and NOT be at least a bit skeptical is reckless.

[WordWhiz]

[ QUOTE ]
In their sampling, they recorded 629 actual total deaths, 82 of those that occured prior to the invasion, and 327 of the 629 deaths were "non-violent".

Of the 302 recorded violent deaths, they attributed 31%, or 93 deaths to coalition forces.

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.

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 ]

Polls of 1000 people can accurately predict presidential elections in which 50 million people vote. I have no personal knowledge of the methodology done here, but 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.

[RedBean]

[ 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.


[ 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.

Let's me and you talk here, and leave that pesky strawman of yours out of the conversation, mmKay?

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?

Do you trust and informal survey conducted over 21 days by gentleman thousands of miles removed more than the folks who have been collecting and disposing of bodies for 3 years?

Overall, I'm just saying I'm a little skeptical of the results here, when the same folks already have one faulty estimate under their belt, and the vast number of long running estimates by folks alot closer to the action are very different.

[whiskeytown]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In their sampling, they recorded 629 actual total deaths, 82 of those that occured prior to the invasion, and 327 of the 629 deaths were "non-violent".

Of the 302 recorded violent deaths, they attributed 31%, or 93 deaths to coalition forces.

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.

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 ]

Polls of 1000 people can accurately predict presidential elections in which 50 million people vote. I have no personal knowledge of the methodology done here, but 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 ]

after watching "Why We Fight"

and seeing the how the vast majority of numbers in the Morgue were citizens (housewives, children, only the occasional soldier) - I would say that GWB and the Iraqi ministries that maintain counts have too much of a credibility problem to discredit this report at this time.

he can play [censored] with climate science - but I don't think he can do anything on this one but more "stay the course" - in other words, deny, lie, deny some more, lie some more, and then blame democrats when your lies and denials result in tragic failures.

rb

[RedBean]

[ QUOTE ]
after watching "Why We Fight" and seeing the how the vast majority of numbers in the Morgue were citizens (housewives, children, only the occasional soldier) - I would say that GWB and the Iraqi ministries that maintain counts have too much of a credibility problem to discredit this report at this time.


[/ QUOTE ]

Assuming the report is accurate, then the majority of those women and children you're seeing in the morgue were put their by non-US forces.

Are insurgents really killing that many people? (69%)

If the insurgency is actually responsible for almost half a million excess deaths, I can understand now why we still maintain a presence over there.

[Chris Alger]

The Pentagon apparently tracks civilian deaths but refuses to disclose its findings. Any any complaints about excessively high estimates therefore should fall on deaf ears. Recall that for years few had any idea that the U.S. had killed more than a million civilians in Vietnam and Cambodia (upper estimates are 4-5 million), or that U.S. soldiers were widely engaged in unprosecuted war crimes. ( See "Civilian Killing Went Unpunished; Declassified Papers Show U.S. Atrocitied Went Far Beyond My Lai," LA Times, 8/6/06). The people most in favor of the war in Iraq still regard the Vietnamese genocide as a worthy or even noble cause.

More telling is that virtually none of the war supporters in the press are willing to set any limit on the number of civilian casualties that would make the war unacceptably costly; not 600,000 or six million, they could care less. Try finding a single pro-war pundit who's said that even 10 million Iraqi deaths would be too high a price for the right to dominate the government and use the country as a staging ground. The current civilian death rate is more than 100 a day, according to morgue reports, and has been throughout 2006; nobody on the right finds this unacceptable.

The reaction to this latest report is further evidence that for a huge chunk of the pro-war minority, killing Iraqis is an end in itself and that the "war" is deteriorating into genocide cheered on conservatives for whom killing Arabs and "fighting terror" are synonymous.

[RedBean]

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.

[whiskeytown]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
after watching "Why We Fight" and seeing the how the vast majority of numbers in the Morgue were citizens (housewives, children, only the occasional soldier) - I would say that GWB and the Iraqi ministries that maintain counts have too much of a credibility problem to discredit this report at this time.


[/ QUOTE ]

Assuming the report is accurate, then the majority of those women and children you're seeing in the morgue were put their by non-US forces.

Are insurgents really killing that many people? (69%)

If the insurgency is actually responsible for almost half a million excess deaths, I can understand now why we still maintain a presence over there.

[/ QUOTE ]

you forgot one more "if"

if the report is correct, it highlights further the incompetence of the Bush Administration - who as we have seen documented in "State of Denial", was unaware there was more then one type of Muslim before the invasion, or that Saddam kept them from tearing the country apart. We also learned that they were told this and have done little if nothing about it since 2002 except cover up the depths of the insurgency and the list of casualities. We won't even admit our own casualities - Did you know the wounded rate for GI's is 2-3 times that of Vietnam? - 9 wounded for every fatality, vs 4-1 for Vietnam.

We're gonna have a [censored] of disability to pay out someday - but those casualities are ignored by the Bush Administration, who regularly cut benefits to military families, combat pay, and post-service medical assistance.

it's easy to remain ignorant and "stay the course" without a human cost on the failures of this Administration - I'm sure we'll hit the million casuality mark before we get out of there -

GWB says he doesn't believe it, but sheeit, it's not like he's smart enough to figure that out for himself

The only people who still take GWB at his word are people who if they stopped, would have to admit they were wrong as well, and they'd rather let GWB become supreme dictator before they do that.

Everyone else understands we were lied to by this Administration since day 1 - (and 50% of us have been saying this since day 1) and now finally people are realizing "hey, it's not my fault - he was a goddman liar who lied to get us into Iraq" - and his assessments have been documented as misleading and false time and time again -

the burden is on him to disprove - as it always is with goddamn liars and "Chicken-Little Hawks" who have issues with honesty.

rb

[ElliotR]

[ 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.