Zeyad on the Lancet body-count survey
posted at 4:15 pm on October 13, 2006 by Allahpundit
Share on Facebook | printer-friendly
He agrees that the estimate’s too high. If he had to guess, he wouldn’t peg it at much more than, oh, say, 300-350,000 killed.
Zeyad’s always been my favorite of the Iraqi bloggers. He’s the best writer, in my opinion, and he’s always come across as eminently decent and fair-minded. So note this well:
One problem is that the people dismissing – or in some cases, rabidly attacking – the results of this study, including governmental officials who, arguably, have an interest in doing so, have offered no other alternative or not even a counter estimate. This is called denial. When you have no hard facts to discredit a scientific study, or worse, if you are forced to resort to absurd arguments, such as “the Iraqis are lying,” or “they interviewed insurgents,” or “the timing to publish this study was to affect American elections,” or “I don’t like the results and they don’t fit into my world view, therefore they have to be false,” it is better for you to just shut up. From the short time I have been here, I am realising that some Americans have a hard time accepting facts that fly against their political persuasions.
The rest of the post describes his observations on the ground in Iraq. It sounds like a Mad Max scenario. Others are hearing the same.
Peter Pace surprised CNN today when he told them the U.S. is reviewing its strategy. And Gen. Dannatt, the head of British forces in the country, is in spin mode now after having told the Daily Mail that they should pull out “soon.” Between this and the Baker report, I think we’re approaching endgame here.
Update: Moran thinks the Baker Commission is a set-up to pressure Bush into pulling out and that failure in Iraq is wholly attributable to a failure of American will. Really? The will was there in 2003. What happened?
Update: Sistani’s influence is draining away.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages:
Baker’s approach is about as laughable as the Lancet figures.
According to the Lileks interview on Hugh Hewitt’s show yesterday; Lancet is basing all this on 547 death cirtificates… extrapolating of course. Doesn’t add up to me; but is just my opinion. Zeyad says the methods are valid but the results are absurd. Then goes on to “guestimate” on the 350k number. You should have quoted this instead of the silly rhetoric:
“The survey used 48 cluster samples from 16 governorates (a total of 1,849 households) and extrapolated the findings across the whole country based on the total population. I may be wrong, but I think this is problematic and can be misleading since the level of violence in, say, the Muthanna or the Erbil governorates is hardly even close to that of Baghdad, Diyala or Anbar. The results would have probably been much more accurate if the samples were selected solely from the areas I’ve depicted above in the map, and then to project the findings to the actual population of these areas. This makes more sense to me, but then I have a limited grasp on statistics and I stress that I may be wrong.” -Zeyad
Though the study is terribly flawed; when you get into the meat and potatoes of this post by Zeyad it is actually interesting. Take a look at the maps… he makes some good points when you get past some of the crap.
Good post, AP.
Cary on October 13, 2006 at 4:54 PM
Where are the bodies? If you can’t show proof, you are the one that needs to “shut up,” Zeyad. If the American government believes the number is around 50,000 killed and so does the Iraqi government, only conspiratorial moonbats would believe otherwise:
1) Why should we distrust both the governments’ numbers? Neither of the governments is totalitarian, so they do not have any real motive to cover up the number of enemy and civilian deaths.
2) Where is your proof? Where did the bodies go? The bodies just disappeared into a black hole.
Why stop at 658,000 killed? If we are going to go for numbers without any proof at all, let’s just say 950,000, 1,200,000, 2,000,000, or any other number that suits our agenda.
januarius on October 13, 2006 at 4:57 PM
AP, zeyad has been bearish on Iraq for some time now. He was one of the 1st people to regard things as being in a state of civil war. He was generally fair in his posts BEFORE he became gripped with fear as a result of the beginning of shiite retaliation against the sunnis. Now he generally believes the worst when it comes to anything like this. He isn’t exactly an objective observer.
I think considering the lack of credibility of the source given the blatant propaganda they put out with their earlier study, this new study is guilty until proven innocent, and nothing Ive seen points to innocence.
The major fallacy at work here, is people like you, AP, and Zeyad giving this ’study’ the benefit of the doubt because it is ’scientific’. That is not using critical reasoning skills.
kaltes on October 13, 2006 at 5:03 PM
So let’s get this straight – Lancet gives an estimate that raises red flags on its face and throws up even more when you look at their extremely dubious methodology … and skepticism of their estimate is equated with denial?
And it’s a nice misdirection as well to bring in the point about skeptics not having a counterestimate. Well hey, based on the fenderbender I saw from my window today, and extrapolating that out using factors as the size of my city and number of intersections, I’m estimating there were 10,000 car accidents in my city today – and if you don’t have a counter-estimate, well then, you are in denial.
Few are denying that the situation on the ground is bad over there. Few are denying that many have been killed. And few question that war is anything other than Hell. Trying to emphasize those points with a grossly exaggerated estimate of the number of deaths and then attacking those who question the estimate as being in denial only undermines those points and raises the question of who is really in denial.
thirteen28 on October 13, 2006 at 5:09 PM
Great points, thirteen28.
On the same lines, I’m going to do a study on how many people lived in Europe in the year 1000, and I’m going to extrapolate as they did in the Johns Hopkins study. I have two parents and they each have two parents and there are about four generations per 100 years. So 2 to the 40th power is 1,099,511,627,776 people, and that is how many people lived in Europe at that time. If you don’t believe me, you have an agenda and need to “shut up.”
If you look at the Johns Hopkins study, there are so many absurdities to the method (as there is in the method of my above example), that to accept their study to be valid without proof (bodies) shows a lack of reasoning ability.
januarius on October 13, 2006 at 5:28 PM
Allah, Moran has it right, and as to what happened since 2003, the MSM, with their willing liberal accomplices in Congress, have managed to give the terrorists, and Saddam backers hope by making statements against our commander-in-chief, and the war effort. They have also demoralized Americans who used to support our efforts.
Look at it this way. We conservatives are taking hits in our Internet war. Google, Gootube, and Digg are amongst the failures that we can point to. Are you willing to thus give up on Hot Air, and conservative blogs?
We knew that dealing with the terrorists would be difficult back in the 80’s, so I’m surprised to see so many freaking out over how hard this struggle has become. Sometimes I think I am the only one who isn’t surprised by the problems we have encountered.
BTW, the President’s poll numbers have been up for 3 days in a row at Rasmussen, but don’t believe that as the MSM has yet to give you permission to do so, and Rasmussen thinks it could be statistical noise [aka. they called the wrong people]. ;oP
DannoJyd on October 13, 2006 at 5:29 PM
Ummmmm, AP?
Not to put too fine a point on it, but isn’t this analysis:
just a tad bit obvious? I could say the exact same thing about Iraqis! Fer chrissake I interviewed scores of them in Baghdad in 2003 and their opinion of our invasion ran the gamet from “you should leave now because that way I won’t be forced to kill you” to “please, please, please make Iraq the fifty-first US state!” Zeyad’s English is far better than my Arabic, of course, and I have “noted well” Zeyad’s opinion here, but I’m not seeing anything exceptional in it. Especially for guys like me who’ve been to Iraq, and who talk to the guys currently in Iraq, and are skeptical of surveys like the Lancet report.
That said, I’ll put his blog on my regular reading list and see if I can devine why you hold him in such high regard, because your recomendation holds a lot of weight with me.
Good Gods! It must be hard being you. ;)
Kadnine on October 13, 2006 at 8:13 PM
Testing… I think either my computer or maybe the Hot Air server ate my comment…
Kadnine on October 13, 2006 at 8:14 PM
I really can not believe that the Arab media would not report on some 500 deaths a day.
It is impossible to believe that the US Media, which has an extreme bias against GWB, would also overlook 500 bodies a day.
The Iraqi Body Count – which claims just over 50,000 dead – has consistently been the high number, till this politically timed survey was published.
If these political forces, drives the US out of Iraq too quickly, then the world will see 600,000 dead and maybe even more than that. (In one battle during the Iran-Iraq war over 1,000,000 killed.)
Marvin on October 14, 2006 at 1:14 PM
For the sake of discussion, assume that the Lancet is within the ballpark.
How many of these deaths were attributable to the Coalition pulling the trigger (or punching ignition) and how many were at the hands of the various factions and enemies of the new Iraqi government?
Just saying.
F. Rottles on October 15, 2006 at 11:26 PM
In case some readers have not read the study, here are the estimates of violent deaths NOT attributed to the Coalition.
Yr 1: 64%
Yr 2: 61%
Yr 3: 74%
Total for the 3 years: 69% NOT attributed to the Coalition.
Looks like there around 2/3rds to 3/4trs of the deaths estimated by this study were not pegged onto the Iraqi military and its allies in the Coalition. The enemy has been too busy.
What I object to in the way this study has been reported, generally, is that the pre-invasion estimates are ludicrous given the nature of the Saddam regime. Also, we must take into account how violent civilian deaths influence the Iraqi population.
With Saddam, the regime’s violence crushed freedom. With the current attacks on the Iraqi government — elected with a democratically ratified constitution — the instigators of the violence are also seeking to crush freedom and to enflame sectarian vigilantism.
When the enemy aims to kill civilians, and when the enemy hides behind civilians, and when the enemy disgusies itself in civilian clothes, it should not surprise that thousands of civilians die violent deaths.
The study is suspect due to the conditions under which such a survey has been undertaken. I wonder why the study did not at least attempt to estimate the number of deaths due to “beheadings” and assassinations and sniper fire? Given the nature of the enemy, all of those can be attributed directly to the thugs the Coalition is fighting against.
F. Rottles on October 16, 2006 at 12:01 AM
Comment pages: