The Iraqi Death Study
Echidne conducts a guided tour of the methodology they used for the study, and it is very standard stuff without any trickery or cherry-picking. The confidence level of 95% reflects that it isn’t all that the researchers might have wished for, but it is the best that can be expected under the existing conditions in Iraq.
Dave Johnson covers another major misunderstanding: the report doesn’t say that the US killed all of these people directly. It states the death rate before the invasion and the death rate since the invasion. Anyone who thinks you can have an invasion, a complete break down in law, an insurgency, and, now, a civil war without the death rate showing a significant increase needs their meds adjusted.
When you destroy the electrical grid, the water and sewage systems, the medical care system, law enforcement, and there’s a guerrilla war going on, more people are going to die than in a stable society, even if that society is repressive.
Thinks about it: if the medical system worked, fewer of those sick or injured would die; if the water and sewage systems worked, there would be less disease; if the criminal justice system worked, there would be fewer murders.
October 14, 2006 8 Comments
HaloScan Having Problems?
Is it just me, or is HaloScan down?
October 14, 2006 6 Comments
