It's official. 150,000 Iraqi civilian deaths

In breaking news the Iraqi health minister has announced that the Iraqi death count is estimated to be 150,000 since the beginning of the Iraqi invasion..

Previous estimates of Iraq deaths held that 45,000 to 50,000 have been killed in the nearly 44-month-old conflict, according to partial figures from Iraqi institutions and media reports. No official count has ever been available.

Link

From the same source..

Moderate Sunni Muslims, meanwhile, threatened to walk away from politics and pick up guns, while the Shiite-dominated government renewed pressure on the United States to unleash the Iraqi army and claimed it could crush violence in six months.

So release the army already and lets get get out of Iraq and end the bloodshed!

What's the hold up?

150,000 lives. Our government decided that it was better for 150,000 people to have no chance at life and kill them, than to let them live at all under the rule of a dictator. Now my question is, if those 150,000 people would have decided for themselves that death was better than living under Saddam's rule, then why weren't there constant, repeated attempts at bringing him down by thousands of his own people willing to die for the cause? No, instead they fought to protect the very dictator and country originally oppressing them. Imagine that.

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
No, instead they fought to protect the very dictator and country originally oppressing them. Imagine that.

That is a good question/statement. Really, people imagine that. Why are there more people fighting us now than there were when we first got there? Couldn't be that we were wrong in the fact that they wanted us to "liberate" them is it? Something's wrong IMO.

Didn't we already have a thread about 655,000 dead Iraqis?

Which is it 150,000 or 655,000?


In either case it is too many innocent people dead. Just like it was too many dead from Saddam Hussien killing Kurds.

655,000 was a figure based on a survey by the Lancet but with questionable methodology.

150,000 is the official figure from the 'independent' Iraqi government so the actual total figure is probably something in between the two.

Let's say it's 250K - in what 3 years? How many was Saddam killing? in how many years?

Seems to me there's more people 'free' and dying than when they were all repressed and dying.

the blood of 150,000 men,women and children are on the hands of every single tax paying american, bravo your tax money at work

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
150,000 lives. Our government decided that it was better for 150,000 people to have no chance at life and kill them, than to let them live at all under the rule of a dictator. Now my question is, if those 150,000 people would have decided for themselves that death was better than living under Saddam's rule, then why weren't there constant, repeated attempts at bringing him down by thousands of his own people willing to die for the cause? No, instead they fought to protect the very dictator and country originally oppressing them. Imagine that.

Ah. Intelligent man you are.

Why did Iraq fail?

Because you can NEVER take down a government, without the majority of the assistance coming from the oppressed people to form a civilized government. If the people that are oppressed, especially if they are a population majority cannot over come the troubles them selves, they will not be strong enough to stand on their feet. It is like taking an infant that is just learning to walk and trying to get it to drive a truck on its own. They where weak, they had no governing, no one to look to, no guidance and no leadership. Now they will die, America will leave and the Sunni will retake the government with a new Saddam.

I'm not making light of the deaths, just making a point. A news article a month ago said the death total was 650,000 plus.

Dbrant that was a completely unscientific "research"

150,000 is a better estimate, 650,000 obviously inflated.

The study published in the Lancet was an independent study while the Iraqi Health Minister is a...politician. Hmmm. I wonder which one is the most independent...

The survey quoting 650,000 deaths in Iraq did not use questionable methodology. Do you have links to back this up, or you merely expressing a 'gut feeling'?

I saw an interview with a British soldier on TV. He was commenting on Blair's comment about Saddam's sentence and that he (Blair) was against the death penalty on principle. The British soldier scoffed at that, and said it was 'rich coming from' Blair after Iraq.


[edit on 10-11-2006 by rizla]

While it may be "official", I would say this number is much more inaccurate than the 655000 one. Clearly a number brought out by a government, owned(for lack of a better term) from the American Admin, which is itself only partial - would be much more prone to abuse than an independant without those direct political leanings.

Also, while the 655k may be high, with a death certificate in 92% of the cases, that translates into ~600K. Clearly this is also only a partial study - but by a methodalogy that is still used for famines, natural disastors and elections. It is a realiable means of guestimating actual numbers, I would guess the same methodology gets accepted in every other case - so it is quite strange that this figure is flawed, when the methodology is excepted in other places.

Simply put though - which number is more reliable? Clearly the one with the less political bias. Who would have more bias? One that merely dislikes the war, or one whose power hinges on the war?

Just IMO. I'll always lean more towards listening to someone who isn't beholdent on the actual numbers, over someone whose power is derived from the very people the figure may hurt. But I guess thats just me

Originally posted by rizla
The study published in the Lancet was an independent study while the Iraqi Health Minister is a...politician. Hmmm. I wonder which one is the most independent...

The survey quoting 650,000 deaths in Iraq did not use questionable methodology. Do you have links to back this up, or you merely expressing a 'gut feeling'?

I saw an interview with a British soldier on TV. He was commenting on Blair's comment about Saddam's sentence and that he (Blair) was against the death penalty on principle. The British soldier scoffed at that, and said it was 'rich coming from' Blair after Iraq.


[edit on 10-11-2006 by rizla]

No it's not a gut feeling - it's standard sampling logic. The Lancet study was based on less than 2,000 families responding and then extrapolated to produce a national figure. This is fine when you're dealing with something that is universally distributed amongst the population such as political views, voting intention etc.

By definition violent death is not universally distributed, it's dependent on many factors - in this case religion, geographical location etc etc. We all know there are hot spots of terrorism in Iraq, by definition there must be 'cool' spots too. 'Dozens' of clusters is not a reliable sample for such a randomly distributed event.

This sampling method, coupled with the difficulties in gathering data in a country recently turned upside down by war is likely to give an unreliable figure.

I'm not saying the survey is useless but it is unreliable.

The Johns Hopkins researchers argue their "cluster sample" approach is more reliable than counting dead bodies, given the obstacles preventing more comprehensive fieldwork in the violent and insecure conditions of Iraq.

"I stand by the figure that a lot of innocent people have lost their life... and that troubles me, and it grieves me," Mr Bush told reporters at the White House.

"Six-hundred thousand or whatever they guessed at is just... it's not credible," Mr Bush said.

The researchers spoke to nearly 1,850 families, comprising more than 12,800 people in dozens of 40-household clusters around the country.

news.bbc.co.uk...

There are clearly differing opinions, many of them politically-biased but even the university quoted don't say it is reliable, they just say it's more reliable than counting bodies. If there was a reliable health infrastructure / effective local government then counting bodies would be relatively easy and thus the most reliable estimate

Read my post again - I'm not making light / excusing any of these deaths but the actual cost of the war must be the true figure less the background death count in Saddam's time. A score of +1 is too many but we really need that data to properly asess the cost of this war in Iraqi civilian blood.

How was the 155 000 arrived at, and how does this manner differ than how the 655 00 come to be?

According to Health minister Ali al-Shemari,

Health minister Ali al-Shemari gave his new estimate of 150,000 to reporters during a visit to Vienna, Austria. He later said that he based the figure on an estimate of 100 bodies per day brought to morgues and hospitals — though such a calculation would come out closer to 130,000 in total.

155 000 Irai's killed

I can see merits to each side, with obvious flaws on both sides. Either number though is a tragedy and should have been avioded. IMO.

Well 150,000 deaths is a lot... How many people died in the US civil war?

Originally posted by Styki
Well 150,000 deaths is a lot... How many people died in the US civil war?

USA:
110,000 killed in action,
360,000 total dead,
275,200 wounded

CSA:
93,000 killed in action,
258,000 total dead
137,000+ wounded

Source: Wikipedia

Call me crazy, but I would tend to believe the Lancet over any government (from any govt.) source. I certainly don't think that something becomes "official" just because the Iraqi Ministry of Health or whatever decides to announce it.

I also have a bit of an issue with statements like the following.

Our government decided that it was better for 150,000 people to have no chance at life and kill them, than to let them live at all under the rule of a dictator.

I think everyone can agree that the decision to go to war did not go down quite like that. Additionally, while the US caused the instability in Iraq which allowed an insurgency to take root and thrive the majority of these casualties were not from the guns or bombs of US troops but from other Iraqis.

The US bears the responsibility of destabilizing the region and failing to provide adequate security. THOSE are the primary crimes of the US. (In relation to this subject. I am not talking about Abu Ghirab here obviously. Just the vast number of civilian casualties.) The actual deaths of most of these innocent people can be attributed to the insurgents or inter-sect warfare.

I am not excusing the blundering job my government has done nor the dishonesty that led us to invade in the first place. The world is full of exaggerations and lies perpetrated by folks who would have us believe that the ends justify the means. I do not believe this. There is a difference between waging war and committing murder just as there is a difference between genocide and casualties. Bush is a crap president and a dim-witted, cruel leader. However he is not a mass murderer.