1115.org

(1)
Most of the stories I have seen in the mainstream media about the Lancet study which estimates that the war on Iraq has caused more than 600,000 Iraqi civilian deaths come off sounding like the ridiculous stuff one sees off and on, which carefully gives equal time to natural selection and intelligent design. This Reuters story from Saturday is a perfect example.

After explaining that the researchers in question have defended their methodology and the accuracy of their estimate, the study offers the following paragraph without comment:

Critics, including President George W. Bush, have said the results are not credible, but Rush said traditional methods for determining death rates, such as counting bodies, are highly inaccurate for civilian populations in times of war.

Bush, of course, was earlier reported, by every single media outlet which carried the story, to have declared that the methodology used for the study – cluster sampling – has been widely discredited.

Now this, like the theory of natural selection or global warming, is a matter of scientific opinion. And whatever else George W. Bush accomplished at Yale, I have grave doubts that when he emerged from there with his C average he was an expert in the validity of statistical sampling techniques. I also doubt very much that he has made himself into an expert since he left Yale, or that he has kept up with current scientific practice. So I’m kind of disinclined just to take his word for it when he declares this methodology to be widely discredited. Especially given his personal stake in the issue. And his track record when it comes to distinguishing fact from fiction or fantasy.

And even though I may not know the first thing about the prevailing scientific opinion on whether cluster sampling is an appropriate technique for a study of this type, I do know that The Lancet is a respected medical journal. I do expect their peer review process to be more than equal to the task of determining if a study’s methodology is questionable. So when you ask me to choose between the unsupported opinion of a President with a huge axe to grind and a reputation for not uniquely comporting with the truth, and the professional opinion of the editorial review board of The Lancet, I have real trouble taking George Bush’s word for it. (In fact, I wouldn’t trust George Bush to piss in the pot but that, as they say, is another story.)

I don’t see how media outlets can just take his word for it either, and report his debunking of the study without comment. Especially when the media has good reason to be perfectly aware of how susceptible Americans are to believing things the President says or implies, even when they are totally untrue (as witness the enduring myth of Saddam’s role in the 9/11 attacks, and his links to al Qaeda).

Surely, it doesn’t take very much journalistic self-respect or much sense of journalistic responsibility or of journalistic integrity (or very much effort either) to ascertain from disinterested scientists what the scientific consensus is, and to report whether or not Bush’s criticism appears to be at all warranted.

Given the gravity of the fact that hangs in the balance – whether the number of civilian deaths in Iraq is more like 600,000 or more like 60,000 – one might expect that the media would recognize this as a duty. But that is obviously a thoroughly outmoded concept.

Not only does the media do no such thing, but as we see in this Reuters story, they seem perfectly comfortable giving equal weight to Bush’s opinion and that of “Dr. David Rush, a professor and epidemiologist at Tufts University in Boston”, who sounds suspiciously like a disinterested scientist who is an expert in the field.

(2)
A little later, the Reuters story says:

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad estimated with 95 percent certainty that the war and its aftermath have resulted in the deaths of between 426,000 and 794,000 Iraqis.

Other estimates have calculated the number of extra Iraqi deaths to be much lower. The Iraq Body Count Database calculates that between 43,850 and 48,693 extra civilians have died since the invasion.

Since Reuters offers no further clarification of any kind, those two paragraphs have the clear effect of making the results of the Johns Hopkins-Al Mustansiriya study sound like a ludicrous overestimate.

It takes only a soupcon of journalistic integrity (and two and a half minutes of effort) to go to the Iraq Body Count Database web page, see if there is any reason why their estimate might be too low, and add to the story the fact that the Iraq Body Count estimates only reflect “media-reported civilian deaths”. More specifically:

Casualty figures are derived from a comprehensive survey of online media reports from recognized sources. Where these sources report differing figures, the range (a minimum and a maximum) are given. This method is also used to deal with any residual uncertainty about the civilian or non-combatant status of the dead.

Counting only those deaths that are reported in online media reports from recognized sources is bound to result in an underestimate. One doesn’t have to be an epidemiologist or even a C-average Yale graduate to realize that most deaths in small Iraqi towns probably don’t make it into the Iraq Body Count database. How severe the underestimate is can be judged only when someone produces a reliable estimate of the total number of deaths.

The Iraq Body Count web site also explains that:

The count includes civilian deaths caused by coalition military action and by military or paramilitary responses to the coalition presence (e.g. insurgent and terrorist attacks).

On the other hand, the Johns Hopkins-Al Mustansiriya study attempts to estimate the total number of civilian deaths that can be attributed to our invasion and occupation of Iraq. In addition to the deaths directly caused by coalition military action and by insurgent and terrorist attacks, this also includes the deaths indirectly caused by the invasion and occupation. Deaths due to the breakdown of medical services, for example.

The fact of the matter is that, by design, the Iraq Body Count does not attempt to estimate the total number of Iraqi civilian deaths attributable to the Iraq war. It only attempts to determine the minimum number of deaths due to coalition military action or insurgent and terrorist attacks that no one can dispute. A conservative bottom line number, if you will. Some might say they deliberately misunderestimate.

When the media says, blandly and without comment, that the Johns Hopkins-Al Mustansiriya study’s estimate is 426,000 to 794,000, while the Iraq Body Count estimate is 43,850 to 48,693, I regard that as an act of criminal mischief.

It is precisely such acts of criminal mischief that allowed the Bush regime to foist the Iraq war upon the American people in the first place. And now the media is conspiring again to cover up the human cost of that first round of criminal mischief.

For George Bush and the Republican Party, the day of reckoning is now at hand. Gods willing, Bush and the Republicans will pay for their multiple acts of criminal mischief. If only there was some way we could hold the media to account too.