Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation
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Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation
#2It's nice to see some scientific work going into the causality count in the Iraq war. Most of the surveys/official estimations are way off, the Opinion Research Business survey reported over a million deaths while most US sources stated around 100k mark.
This report is somewhere in the middle, which is most realistic.
Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation
#3According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein'..., estimates of Iraqis killed by Saddam range from a quarter million to a million, and estimates of Iranians killed in the Iran-Iraq are in a similar range. So, let's call his death toll a half million to two million.
About a decade after the Gulf War, which had pretty much put a stop to Saddam's killing spree, the US decided to invade Iraq again, on the pretext that Saddam was building weapons of mass destruction. The evidence was quite flimsy, and it turns out not to have been true. In the process, the US and allies, plus the destabilization of the country after, managed to kill another half million Iraqis.
Think about that for a minute. A half million people, killed based on a flimsy pretext, that anyone with half a brain could see through (and no, I don't just say this in hindsight, I thought the justification was flimsy at the time as well). Somewhere between a quarter as many and as many people killed by the Iraq War as Saddam himself had killed.
How did we come to this? How is it possible that we have gone so far astray that we are slaughtering as many people as someone we vilify as part of the "axis of evil"?
Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation
#4"95% uncertainty interval 48,000–751,000"
I understand the value in trying to quantify this, but it's difficult to really conclude anything useful when your upper and lower confidence intervals vary by 15x
Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation
#5According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein'... , estimates of Iraqis killed by Saddam range from a quarter million to a million, and estimates of Iranians killed in the Iran-Iraq are in a similar range. So, let's call his death toll a half million to two million. About a decade after the Gulf War, which had pretty much put a stop to Saddam's killing spree, the US decided to inv…
Because of the sanctions in the 90's there were also up to half a million excess deaths of children aged under 5. It was called genocide by both men who were in charge of it, both of whom resigned in protest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq#Estimate...
I also find it interesting that many people who deny that this many people were killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion will have no problem believing the 100,000 figure of people who were killed in the Syrian Civil War so far, which has been a much smaller conflict than Iraq.
Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation
#6It's nice to see some scientific work going into the causality count in the Iraq war. Most of the surveys/official estimations are way off, the Opinion Research Business survey reported over a million deaths while most US sources stated around 100k mark. This report is somewhere in the middle, which is most realistic.
There have been very serious studies done on Iraqi war mortality for quite some time, starting with Roberts and Burnham, who did two very credible epidemiological surveys of mortality in 2004 and 2006 (published in the Lancet) using a similar approach as the study referenced above. The later study estimated somewhere around 600,000+ (95% confidence interval of 392,979 to 942,636) had already died by 2006 (and this before the renewed sectarian violence and US offensive in 2007).
It's notable that even this new study's lead author thinks their half-million figure is an underestimate:
""We think it is roughly around half a million people dead. And that is likely a low estimate," says Hagopian. "People need to know the cost in human lives of the decision to go to war."
Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation
#7That happens after most wars. At least it wasn't deliberate policy as with the world wars. The real crime was that that war even happened. I remember how laughable the propaganda leading up to it was. GWB couldn't go two sentences without saying "weapons of mass destruction" or "Al-quada". Right down the memory hole. Pretty sad.
Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation
#8According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein'... , estimates of Iraqis killed by Saddam range from a quarter million to a million, and estimates of Iranians killed in the Iran-Iraq are in a similar range. So, let's call his death toll a half million to two million. About a decade after the Gulf War, which had pretty much put a stop to Saddam's killing spree, the US decided to inv…
Well, Western responsibility for the slaughter is less direct than Saddam's killings (although that doesn't help the victims much).
Yes, Iraq seemed to have been selected as a military target for reasons not disclosed to the public.
Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation
#9According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein'... , estimates of Iraqis killed by Saddam range from a quarter million to a million, and estimates of Iranians killed in the Iran-Iraq are in a similar range. So, let's call his death toll a half million to two million. About a decade after the Gulf War, which had pretty much put a stop to Saddam's killing spree, the US decided to inv…
It's incorrect to say the evidence on WMD was flimsy, it was very solid. That is to say that it was almost certain that Iraq had no usable WMD. The "evidence" to the contrary were fabrications, obvious at the time, without the benefit of hindsight. As was widely pointed out then.
Re: Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation
#10According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein'... , estimates of Iraqis killed by Saddam range from a quarter million to a million, and estimates of Iranians killed in the Iran-Iraq are in a similar range. So, let's call his death toll a half million to two million. About a decade after the Gulf War, which had pretty much put a stop to Saddam's killing spree, the US decided to inv…
what, Iraq wants to join chemical arms ban organization? can't have that
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/world/to-ousted-boss-arms-...