This morning on KUOW’s Weekday the topic of discussion was “Who Won in Iraq?” Steve Scher’s first guest was Neocon posterchild David Frum. While Frum was discussing Iraqi deaths, he rather casually threw out the statement (at 8:14) that “the Lancet study [of Iraqi mortality] has been pretty thoroughly discredited.”
No, Mr. Frum, it hasn’t.
The Lancet study has been widely misunderstood, but not discredited. There are many batshit crazy neocons like Mr. Frum who wish, in their heart of hearts, that the grim reality uncovered by the Lancet study wasn’t so. But, if wishes were horses, neocons could ride…in a new crusade to world dominance….
The Lancet study [Burnham et al. (2006) Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq:a cross-sectional cluster sample survey, Lancet 368(9545):1421-8.] found that there were 654,965 excess Iraqi deaths (with 95% confidence that the true number falls between 392,979 to 942,636) in the post-invasion period. The study used a standard epidemiological method of cluster sampling—methods that have been used in thousands of studies without controversy.
What is largely misunderstood about the Lancet study is that the estimates reflect a change in all forms of mortality between the pre-invasion period to the post-invasion (July, 2006) period. The excess deaths are mostly violent, but they also include non-violent excess deaths, like those resulting from increases in disease or resulting from destroyed health care infrastructure, etc. Other estimates, like counting media reports of deaths (i.e. the Iraq Body Count project) are not only attempting to measuring a subset of the mortality of the Lancet paper, but the IBC project method vastly underestimates all war-related mortality, just because every fatality is not reported in the Iraqi press. (In other words, because the estimates are substantially biased downward, the IBC body count would never be considered valid scientific estimates of total mortality in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.)
Frum’s statement is just another wingnut talking point that was directly disseminated by George W. Bush the morning the Lancet article was covered by the media. Bush came out swinging: (hear it here) “Six hundred thousand or whatever they guessed at is just, it’s not credible.” And then he defined the administration-approved wingnut talking point that the study was “pretty well discredited.”
Uh-huh. A newly published paper in one of the top scientific and medical journals in the world, “pretty well discredited” within hours of publication? Not!
You see, the opinions of politicians and pundits are irrelevant—they have no bearing on the validity of a scientific study. It is scientific review by the people who are qualified to evaluate the work (you know, people with PhDs in statistics, demography, or epidemiology) that determine whether or not the science is valid.
So far, there has been little scientific controversy over the findings. Because science is a constant game of oneupsmanship, a number of skeptical scientists have probed the methods for potential flaws and biases. Scientists consider this kind of skepticism extremely healthy—no paper is above scrutiny and there are large rewards in the community of science for uncovering fundamental flaws in a published paper. As a result, every now and then flaws are found that lead to the retraction of a paper.
Not so in this case. Despite a number of spirited attempts by qualified scientists to uncover scientific flaws in the paper, nothing of substance has been demonstrated that substantially challenges the scientific findings. If and when flaws in the paper can be demonstrated, the paper will be retracted. But for now, the scientific community considers that the paper’s findings are valid.
I just thought I would help clear up Mr. Frum’s misunderstanding…even if it means kicking the legs out from under his warrior horse.
Seems to me that “pretty thoroughly discredited”, especially when spewed by anti-science Republicans (e.g. Frum, Bush, Cheney, et al.), is all but equivalent to “well-reasoned and strongly supported by the best available evidence”.
Haven’t they also declared global warming, barrier contraception as HIV-infection prevention, and other such scientific truisms “pretty thoroughly discredited”?
Note also that the cited sources (if any) for “pretty thoroughly discredited” declarations are never from peer-reviewed journals or competitively-funded research grants.
Here is a very good article from “This American Life” on the Lancet Study and the politics that tried to smear it:
http://www.thislife.org/pages/.....5/300.html
Too bad the people in Iraq can’t agree to a velvet divorce like the Czech Republic and Slovakia had. This one would be a three-way divorce, though, with the Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds as participants.
I don’t know what’s going to happen in Iraq, but I think eventually there’ll be three countires where there was only one before all this trouble started.
@ 2
I listened to that, and I think I still have the podcast. It was brilliant.
Libertarian @3:
Too bad the people in the US can’t agree to a velvet divorce like the Czech Republic and Slovakia had. This one would be a three-way divorce, though, with the Democrats, Republicans and Faux-News deadenders as participants.
Fixed your typos.
N in Seattle:
Don’t forget evolution, also thoroughly discredited by wingnuts! I think gravity must be next on the list, because if you have gravity, how are all of those people gonna get raptured?
Oh, and David Frum is a festering boil. That is all.
Libertarian @ 3:
“I don’t know what’s going to happen in Iraq, but I think eventually there’ll be three countires where there was only one before all this trouble started.
You mean separate countries like it was before England tried to bring democracy to the Middle East 100 years ago and created the state of Iraq??
Yeah, some certain president obviously slept in World History class, didn’t he?
Hey, how’s the recruitment campaign going?
“Now hear this! Now hear this! All Republicans, vote Libertarian in 2008!! That is all.”
See Libertarin, I’m trying to help you build a new opposition party. Rock on, dude!
I wonder what percentage of the staff at the Discovery Institute has been diverted from conjuring up creation-apologist hokum to supplying convoluted explanations for how the Iraquis have never had it so good.
http://www.re-discovery.org/
I ran across this hugely funny send-up of the Discovery Institute’s website.
“The reDiscovery Institute promotes archaic religious dogma elegantly dressed in html code and modern scientific terminology, to school boards, museums, theaters, juries, and editorial pages across America. We support and maintain the Intelligent Design Hall of Fame. The reDiscovery Institute urges adherence to Phillip Johnson’s Ice Pick Gambit: “Until we gain total control, keep the old testament part of our agenda quiet because it frightens normal people.” The reDiscovery Institute is backed by members, a board, and an ultra-conservative, ultra-rich, California savings and loan heir who believes that the American democracy should be replaced with biblical theocracy.”
We must destroy Iraq in order to save it. Security, peace, and prosperity are worthless if neocon principles do not provide a government’s guiding light. Indeed, no individual can find true happiness absent adherence to the neocon mindset.
I think it’s Karl Roves fault.
You gotta give Bush credit where it’s due for achieving the impossible in Iraq: He has killed more Iraqis than Saddam did, and Iraqis now hate America more than they hated Saddam. Meanwhile, the only thing Sunnis and Shiites agree on is killing American soldiers.
@12 I think you are your parents’ fault.
TypicalWingNutz(tm) says:
I think it’s Bill Clinton’s fault
David Frum has been pretty well discredited….this dictum applies to everything he says. The fact that ANYBODY in the MSM lets him spew his gibberish into a microphone or recording device merely underscores the idiotic notion of a “liberal” media.
@ 12:
I think for the first time in your life you just might be right.
I, too, remember Bush’s half-snapped reply. What makes it interesting is that the “cluster” methodology is used by the Dept. of Labor to check unemployment statistics, by the NIH to decide when a disease is “epidemic”, and, I believe, by most states to estimate what percentage of adults are registered to vote.
Darryl,
To maintain that 400,000, 600,000 or 900,000 Iraqis have been killed since the liberation of Iraq is ape-shit crazy.
If that many people did die, then where are the bodies? Literally with that many dead you can’t put them anywhere. You can’t hide them. There’d be evidence of mass graves. Refugees fleeing the carnage would be streaming into Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iraq would be depopulated.
You’d have hundreds of thousands of witnesses observing them just with U.S. service personnel. The British, Poles and other coalition forces would be reporting this. And unlike most of the folks at this blog, I actually meet, know and speak with people “over there”. I’ve not heard of this. Helps being a military family member…
The numbers you quoted meet and exceed the number the number of American combat deaths in the U.S. Civil War or World War II. The figures you cite exceed the number of non-POW casualties inflicted on the Germans by the Allies during the liberation of France in 1944.
Also if these are violent fatalities, as you’re maintaining, then there should also be an equal or greater number of injured casualties as well.
Come on Darryl. You’re better than this.
@16 “David Frum has been pretty well discredited”
Even his friends don’t like him anymore:
“Proud wife turns ‘axis of evil’ speech into a resignation letter
“Matthew Engel in Washington
“Wednesday February 27, 2002
“The Guardian
“The public had a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the White House yesterday when David Frum, the man said to have invented the phrase ‘axis of evil’, resigned from President George Bush’s speechwriting team, causing a debate as to whether he walked out or was pushed.
“Mr Frum became well known after President Bush used the term in his state of the union address. But his celebrity came about only because his wife, Danielle, emailed friends … to claim credit for her husband. The message was picked up by the media.
“This was considered an affront to the … traditions of the speechwriters’ room, whose occupants … are expected to remain … anonymous.
“The Frumgate affair erupted when the commentator Robert Novak claimed on CNN that the president was so infuriated by the emails that Mr Frum was fired. This was denied by the White House and Mr Frum, who accused Mr Novak of ‘making stuff up’ ….
“Presidents have a core team of four or five writers working on their speeches. Like most White House staffers, they rarely last through the length of a presidency, although Mr Bush has only been in office 13 months and Mr Frum is one of the first senior figures to go. …”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush.....24,00.html
@19 Are you saying The Lancet lied, or made this stuff up? Or that you know more, by way of hearsay, than their editorial staff does by way of scholarly research?
“The Lancet is one of the oldest peer-reviewed medical journals in the world …. It was founded in 1823 …. The Lancet has a significant readership throughout the world with a high impact factor. It publishes original research articles, review articles …, editorials, book reviews, correspondences, … news features and case reports. The Lancet is considered to be one of the ‘core’ general medical journals, the others being the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the British Medical Journal. …”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lancet
“The Lancet published two studies on the effect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation on Iraqi mortality, the first in 2004, the second (by many of the same authors) in 2006. The studies attempt to estimate the number of excess deaths caused by the occupation, both direct (combatants plus non-combatants) and indirect (due to increased lawlessness, degraded infrastructure, poor healthcare, etc.). …
“The second survey … estimated 654,965 excess deaths related to the war, or 2.5% of the population, through the end of June 2006 … [with] a 95% confidence interval of 392,979 to 942,636 excess Iraqi deaths.
“The Lancet surveys are controversial because their figures are much higher than those in most other major reports (for example, those from the Iraq Body Count project, the United Nations, and the Iraqi Ministry of Health). The Lancet surveys’ reliability was widely criticized by the US and Iraqi governments, the Iraq Body Count project, and various other sources. However, the Lancet surveys were supported by many epidemiologists and statisticians. See the sections below on ‘criticism’ and ‘responses to criticism.”
For detailed discussion, see http://tinyurl.com/y2dk2q
Frankly, Reportward, if you want to be taken seriously as a journalist I think you should refrain from rebutting scholarly work with personal anecdotal opinion. Maybe you can persuade some media organization to conduct an independent journalistic investigation on this subject, and put you in charge of it, with adequate resources to do a credible job. But peeling crap off the wall just doesn’t cut it.
Let us recognize the truth. Every death in Iraq constitutes a HUMAN SACRIFACE to the ego of George W. Bush.
“To maintain that 400,000, 600,000 or 900,000 Iraqis have been killed since the liberation of Iraq is ape-shit crazy.
If that many people did die, then where are the bodies?”
Overflowing from the morgues in Baghdad, for starters. Many showing signs of torture. (Also, in mass graves, also with torture scars.) Now do the math: one or two car-bombings per day, each with 10 – 50 victims, every day, for years. That puts you in the hundreds of thousands range quite nicely.
Evolution, global warming, statistical mortality studies: why do wingnuts hate science? Oh yeah, it’s a reliable way of obtaining the truth. That explains their hatred.
“Evolution, global warming, statistical mortality studies: why do wingnuts hate science? Oh yeah, it’s a reliable way of obtaining the truth. That explains their hatred.”
You have scientific proof for any of them?
To maintain that 400,000, 600,000 or 900,000 Iraqis have been killed since the liberation of Iraq is ape-shit crazy.
WELL HOW MANY PEOPLE DIED IN TEXAS IN 2004? (APPROX SAME POPULATION AS IRAQ, A LITTLE SMALLER):
153,301.
HOW MANY IN CALIFORNIA IN 2003? (10 MILLION MORE PEOPLE):
239,371
HOW MANY IRANIANS AND IRAQIS DIED BY 1984 IN THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR?
550,000
GEE WHERE DO YOU PUT ALL THE BODIES?