Current News in Context
October 29, 2004
100,000 Civilian Deaths Since Iraq Invasion (The Lancet)
This new study to be published by The Lancet magazine sets a new benchmark for the number of Iraqis who have died as a result of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. The study says the risk of death by violence for civilians in Iraq is now 58 times higher than before the US-led invasion.
The authors find that US aerial bombardments are killing far more Iraqi civilians than had previously been suspected. The report illustrates that with appropriate methodology, and committed field survey, it is indeed possible to have a more realistic understanding of the human cost of this on-going war.
Broader Points that have been brought out
The impact of the international humanitarian community's absence.
Result: UNICEF the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), organizations that in the past issued reports about the humanitarian crisis as a result of sanctions are no longer operating in Iraq and unable to issue this type of report.
The methodology: A household survey has produced a larger number because it includes broader catagories. It is substantially larger than the Iraq Body Count (IBC) whose figures are just derived from eyewitness and press reported accounts. IBC is an important stop-gap measure, but one that should be assumed by the occupying powers themselves.
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Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey
Les Roberts, Riyadh Lafta, Richard Garfield, Jamal Khudhairi, Gilbert Burnham
Summary
Background In March, 2003, military forces, mainly from the USA and the UK, invaded Iraq. We did a survey to compare mortality during the period of 14.6 months before the invasion with the 17.8 months after it.
Methods A cluster sample survey was undertaken throughout Iraq during September, 2004. 33 clusters of 30 households each were interviewed about household composition, births, and deaths since January, 2002. In those households reporting deaths, the date, cause, and circumstances of violent deaths were recorded. We assessed the relative risk of death associated with the 2003 invasion and occupation by comparing mortality in the 17.8 months after the invasion with the 14.6-month period preceding it.
Findings The risk of death was estimated to be 2.5-fold (95% CI 1.6-4.2) higher after the invasion when compared with the preinvasion period. Two-thirds of all violent deaths were reported in one cluster in the city of Falluja. If we exclude the Falluja data, the risk of death is 1.5-fold (1.1-2.3) higher after the invasion. We estimate that 98000 more deaths than expected (8000-194000) happened after the invasion outside of Falluja and far more if the outlier Falluja cluster is included. The major causes of death before the invasion were myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular accidents, and other chronic disorders whereas after the invasion violence was the primary cause of death. Violent deaths were widespread, reported in 15 of 33 clusters, and were mainly attributed to coalition forces. Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children. The risk of death from violence in the period after the invasion was 58 times higher (95% CI 8.1-419) than in the period before the war.
Interpretation Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths. We have shown that collection of public-health information is possible even during periods of extreme violence. Our results need further verification and should lead to changes to reduce non-combatant deaths from air strikes.
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The BBC has some interesting commentary:
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Juan Cole wrote about the report this morning.
US Has Killed 100,000 in Iraq: The Lancet, respected British medical journal, reports that the US and coalition forces (but mainly the US Air Force) has killed 100,000 Iraqi civilians since the fall of Saddam on April 9, 2003. Previous estimates for civilian deaths since the beginning of the war ranged up to 16,000, with the number of Iraqi troops killed during the war itself put at about 6,000.
The troubling thing about these results is that they suggest that the US may soon catch up with Saddam Hussein in the number of civilians killed. How many deaths to blame on Saddam is controverial. He did after all start both the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War. But he also started suing for peace in the Iran-Iraq war after only a couple of years, and it was Khomeini who dragged the war out until 1988. But if we exclude deaths of soldiers, it is often alleged that Saddam killed 300,000 civilians. This allegation seems increasingly suspect. So far only 5000 or so persons have been found in mass graves. But if Roberts and Burnham are right, the US has already killed a third as many Iraqi civilians in 18 months as Saddam killed in 24 years.
The report is based on extensive household survey research in Iraq in September of 2004. Les Roberts and Gilbert Burnham found that the vast majority of the deaths were the result of US aerial bombardment of Iraqi cities, which they found especially hard on "women and children." After excluding the Fallujah data (because Fallujah has seen such violence that it might skew the nationwide averages), they found that Iraqis were about 1.5 times more likely to die of violence during the past 18 months than they were in the year and a half before the war.
Before the war, the death rate was 5 per thousand per year, and afterwards it was 7.9 per thousand per year (excluding Fallujah). My own figuring is that, given a population of 25 million, that yields 72,500 excess deaths per year, or at least 100,000 for the whole period since April 9, 2003.The methodology of this study is very tight, but it does involve extrapolating from a small number and so could easily be substantially incorrect. But the methodology also is standard in such situations and was used in Bosnia and Kosovo.
I think the results are probably an exaggeration. But they can't be so radically far off that the 16,000 deaths previously estimated can still be viewed as valid. I'd say we have to now revise the number up to at least many tens of thousand--which anyway makes sense. The 16,000 estimate comes from counting all deaths reported in the Western press, which everyone always knew was only a fraction of the true total. (I see deaths reported in al-Zaman every day that don't show up in the Western wire services).
The most important finding from my point of view is not the magnitude of civilian deaths, but the method of them.
Roberts and Burnham find that US aerial bombardments are killing far more Iraqi civilians than had previously been suspected. This finding is also not a surprise to me. I can remember how, on a single day (August 12), US warplanes bombed the southern Shiite city of Kut, killing 84 persons, mainly civilians, in an attempt to get at Mahdi Army militiamen. These deaths were not widely reported in the US press, especially television. Kut is a small place and has been relatively quiet except when the US has been attacking Muqtada al-Sadr, who is popular among some segments of the population there. The toll in Sadr City or the Shiite slums of East Baghdad, or Najaf, or in al-Anbar province, must be enormous.
I personally believe that these aerial bombardments of civilian city quarters by a military occupier that has already conquered the country are a gross violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, governing the treatment of populations of occupied territories.
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