100,000 Civilians Dead in Iraq

asldihf writes "New Scientist is reporting that 100,000 civilians in Iraq are now dead due to America's war in Iraq. Make sure you vote next week."

different stats

[cheeseSource]

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

Different sites have different stats, but one civilian death is one too many.

Re:Yes, and don't forget

[theghost]

RTFA
The most common cause of death is as a direct result of violence, mostly caused by coalition air strikes...

Re:Yes, and don't forget

[Anonymous Coward]

And why are they still doing air strikes? It's not for fun, it's not just to kill people. If the intent was to kill civillians, they'd pretty much all be dead. They're trying to get at the terrorists.

Only 50% higher death rate

[slughead]

The overall risk of death was 1.5 times more after the invasion than before.

That also includes the invasion itself. At this rate, eventually it may go down.

Re:different stats

[Leftist Troll]

Iraq Body Count only includes verified deaths reported by credible media outlets. The 100,000 stat is an estimate based on door-to-door surveys, which should be more accurate. That's why I made it my sig yesterday. Also, note this excerpt from the VOA article my sig links to:

The researchers did not include deaths in the volatile city of Fallujah in their final analysis, saying that would have skewed the death toll much higher.

AP's story on this is troublesome

[scupper]

AP is running a story on this which goes into a little more detail,

Household Survey Sees 100,000 Iraqi Deaths [go.com]

And there are some troblesome excerpts:

• There is no official figure for the number of Iraqis killed since the conflict began
  
• some non-governmental estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000.
  
• concede that the data they based their projections on were of "limited precision,"
  
• quality of the information depends on the accuracy of the household interviews used for the study
  
• report was released just days before the U.S. presidential election, and the lead researcher said he wanted it that way.
  
• possible that they may have zoned in on hotspots that might not be representative of the death toll across Iraq
  
• more household clusters would have improved the precision of the report
  

Re:Kerry now says he'd have gone to war too...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just so we're clear, this is what that guy who think's he's a reporter(drudge) has on his site:

NBCNEWS Brokaw interviewed John Kerry Thursday evening.

Brokaw: "If you had been President, Saddam Hussein would be in power."

Kerry: "Not necessarily."

Brokaw: "You said you wouldn't go to war against him."

Kerry: "That's not true. Because under the inspection process, Saddam Hussein was required to destroy those kinds of materials and weapons."

Brokaw: "But he wasn't destroying them."

Kerry: "That's what you have inspectors for. That's why I voted for the threat of force, because he only does things when you have a legitimate threat of force. It's irresponsible to suggest that if I were President, he wouldn't be gone. He might be gone, because if he hadn't complied, we might have had to go to war, but if we did, we would have gone with allies, so the American people weren't carrying the entire burden. And the entire world would understand why we did it."

Hmmm...Where did Kerry say he would have gone to war to? He was responding to the statement that Saddam would still be in power and he said "not necessarily". Then he stated about how we "may" have gone to war with all our allies if Saddam hadn't backed down and stopped farting around with the weapons inspectors.

But to take what he said and just thrown out flippantly "would probably have been the same" is kind of not true.

Re: Yes, and don't forget

[isotope23]

"At least three times that many, plus about 900,000,000 Iranian soldiers in the gratuitous war he started."

Don't forget that we provided intelligence TO
Saddam during that war [gwu.edu]

Bull$hit

[thedocdm]

I'm calling BS on this article. They conducted a sampling survey to generate these numbers? Come on now. I'm more inclined to believe iraqbodycount.org and the media always gets it wrong (and never corrects themselves.) And to blame most of the deaths on the US bombing? Total horse $hit. Have innocent people died in Iraq? Hell yes. Have many of them been our fault? Yes. Have any of them been deliberate? No. Half of the innocent lives lost over here, by estimation and observation for the past eight months I've been in Baghdad (being a little involved in intelligence reports), come from the insurgents/terrorists. Their road-side bombs and car bombs as often target civilians and Iraqi security forces (the ones who take huge personal risk upon themselves and their families to try to make a difference in the future of their country) as they target Coalition Forces. This article is BS BS BS BS!

Re:The important question...

[Saganaga]

Somebody always steps up to rationalize genocide. I guess it's your turn.

You keep using that word [reference.com]. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Nice Slant on Article Selection

[Mr. Ghost]

I do not understand how the articles that are considered for posting are being filtered. I would like to know the number of "pro-Bush" versus "pro-Kerry" submissions are actually accepted. Not a single "pro-Bush" subject even shows up on the list yet I know that they are being submitted. Like this one GOP beats Dems on tech-friendliness [com.com].

Given that Slashdot is such a techie heavy site you would think that something combining tech and politics would be appropriate yet articles like these never seem to be accepted.

oh well...I'm done ranting now and am willing to accept the Offtopicness of this posting.

Not *quite* entirely, but close.

[Onan]

As TFA notes: this is 100,000 deaths above the death rate for a previous pre-war period, and; the most common cause of these deaths was airstrikes.

So unless you're suggesting that their countrymen have an extensive air force that they'd been planning on using regardless of the US's invasion, no, it's pretty accurate to characterize these deaths as being the result of American acts.

More info from the authors

[melquiades]

I heard one of the authors interviewed on the radio yesterday. Some interesting points from him:

• Even they were very surprised by the figures. They doubted the numbers, but in the end, trusted their own science enough to publish.
  
• He emphasized that it's just an estimate, and we need more information.
  
• One of the areas in their random sample happened to be Falujah. They ended up leaving it out of the estimate, because it would have given a much higher death toll.
  
• They did actually ask a certain percentage for death certificates or other proof of death, in order to estimate how many people were lying, and took that into account.

Re: different stats

[cold fjord]

As in this case, where the "liberation" angle is emergency spin to cover the lack of WMD in Iraq.

You are wrong, as you can see in President Bush's address to the nation [whitehouse.gov] on March 17, 2003, as he delivered an ultimatum to Saddam (hint: before the war):

Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them. If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.

That wasn't a hard one to get right.

Re:Who Is Intentionally Killing Civilians?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just this past week there were 49 members of the nascent Iraqi Guard were murdered. You mean to tell me that murdering men who were trying to protect your country is something a concerned citizen should do?

In the last World War, France was invaded by Germany. Although the Germans didn't put Marshal Pétain in power, they decided to make business with him. When resistance movements started to appear, Pétain's Government set up the Militia, a paramilitary force, to eradicate them, and declared all resistants criminals. Obviously, the resistance wasn't very happy. Hence, they decided to label the Militia, the Government and everyone doing business with, or on behalf of the Germans as "collaborators". They would usually kill all "collabos" they could get their hands on. By joining the Iraqi National Guard, a military force reporting to the American-backed Iyad Allawi, those guys knew they would be branded as collaborators by the Iraqi resistance movements. Resistants obviously do not see Allawi's Government as legitimate, no more than French resistants found any legitimacy in Pétain's Government. They're thus trying to topple him, and this surely implies hampering his military capabilities. I cannot condone attacks on journalists or NGO operatives, but attacks on *soldiers* ? Puh-lease ! Also, your vision of resistance groups as "barbians [sic] whose goal is to kill anyone who will not submit to their vision of worldwide islamic theocracy." is way too restrictive. Al-Zarqawi is certainly not leading the *only* resistance group. We've seen Shi'a groups (like Al-Sadr's one), Sunni groups in the famous triangle, Iraqi nationalists and disgruntled military people... But I suppose it's always more reassuring to lump them all under the "islamo-fascist" banner. This way, you don't have to envision the implications of a grassroots insurgency phenomenon for the future of the quagmire... huh, I mean, the glorious advent of democracy in Iraq. Well, what can I say ? Good luck ; you'll need it, for sure.

Re:Peace breaks out.

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to get in touch with reality.

Bush has ended the 25 years of war in Afghanistan

No, he didn't. Afghanistan is still a very big mess. The same warlords that ruled under the Taleban are still in power and in some cases fighting bloody battles amongst each other. The Taleban still exists and is again gaining strength, retaking control in several areas.

The Administration has also negotiated a cease-fire in southern Sudan, ending a civil war that killed over two million people

That cease fire never held. UN sponsored talks are currently on hold because the Sudan Liberation Movement will no longer talk directly to the Sudanese government until its some of it's concerns are addressed. In the mean time people are still being killed in that region.

Iraq will soon become democratic and free, which will create peace.

More likely is that eventually a full blown civil war will break out between the various fractions in that region. (remember..Iraq was never stable. Sadam's ruthless regime was the only thing that kept Iraq together. Another thing to remember is that democracy as we know it doesn't work well in a tribal culture.)

With Bush as president, the rest of the world actually seems to care about innocent bloodshed.

Too bad Bush doesn't. I hope you're not so naive to think Afgahnistan was invaded to help it's people. It was invaded because that's where Bin Laden and his training camps were. Not to free it's poor people from supression. Nor was Iraq invaded to help it's people. Like any other country the US acts only if it is in it's own interest.

The more that war leads the news, the faster peace breaks out.

I see. A war to end all wars is it?
The more that war leads the news, the more hatred will be unleashed and the more opinions will shift towards the extremes.
Recruitment and support for the terrorists will only have grown as a result of the war. We now face larger and more powerfull terrorist organisations than before. In stead of more peace we can expect more bloodshed.