The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly • A team of American and Iraqi public health researchers has estimated that 600,000 civilians have died in violence across Iraq since the 2003 American invasion, the highest estimate ever for the toll of the war here. • “But it is an estimate and not a precise count, and researchers acknowledged a margin of error that ranged from 426,369 to 793,663 deaths." New York Times

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly • “Hopkins study published in the Lancet estimated that 654,00 more Iraqis died of various causes after the invasion than would have died in a comparable period before.” • in October 2004, the Hopkins group estimated that close to 100,000 more people had died in the 17 months after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Critics attacked that earlier study, in part, because of a wide published “confidence interval,” a range within which the true number exists.” • “The researchers now say that Iraqi deaths totaled between 392,000 to 942,000. Their best estimate is 654,000.” Baltimore Sun

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly • This study, "The Human Cost of the War in Iraq," puts civilian fatalities at 426,369 to 793,663 but gives a 95% certainty to the figure of 601,027. Wall Street Journal

More interpretations “The Johns Hopkins team reports being 95 percent certain that the true figure lies between about 400,000 and about 900,000” – Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson 10/13/2006 “To be sure, the researchers of the Lancet study says possible errors leave a range between a low of 392,979 additional deaths and a high of 942,636. The 601,000 figure is the median.” – Christian Science Monitor’s Dan Murphy 10/13/2006 “The researchers, reflecting the inherent uncertainties in such extrapolations, said they were 95 percent certain that the real number lay somewhere between 392,979 and 942,636 deaths. Even the smaller figure is almost eight times the estimate some others have derived.” – Associated press as cited by Christian Science Monitor’s Tom Regan 10/12/2006

“Some statistical caveats are entered. The lowest estimate of deaths is put at 392,979 and the highest at 942,636. The lowest figure is still much bigger than the other counts.” – BBC’s Paul Reynolds 10/13/2006

“It is not the case that every point in the confidence interval range is equally likely. In fact, assuming that there was little bias, the true death toll is much more likely to be close to the point estimate (655,000) than to the lower (393,000) and upper (943,000) bounds of the confidence range. It isn't a dartboard.” – Francesco Checci an epidemiologist writing in a 10/12/2006 Rueters report In the same article: “The Lancet survey does not perform ‘extrapolation’ from a small sample, as the British government claims. It estimates a death rate, and merely applies it to the time period, and population, within which that death rate was measured - a statistically transparent procedure, given that the survey covered the entire country with the exception of two Governorates.”

“Talk of confidence intervals becomes frankly irrelevant at this point. If you want to pick a figure for the precise number of excess deaths, then (1.33% - 0.55%) x 26,000,000 x 3.25 = 659,000 is as good as any, multiplying out the difference between the death rates by the population of Iraq and the time since the invasion. But we're interested in the qualitative conclusion here.” – Daniel Davies of the Guardian Unlimited 10/12/2006 “In their first study in 2004, the confidence interval was huge: The Johns Hopkins team basically concluded that it had 95-per-cent confidence the war had caused somewhere between 8,000 and 194,000 extra deaths by that point. Its 100,000 figure was the most probable number on this large continuum, which of course assumes violent deaths in Iraq can be plotted on the same bell curve as, say, breast cancer rates in North America. That earlier study interviewed 30 households in each of 33 neighbourhoods. This one roughly 40 households in each of 50 sites and as a result the confidence continuum has narrowed considerably to between 426,369 and 795,663 — which is still quite a range. If this was a political poll, it would be like saying a prime minister's popularity was anywhere between 35 and 65 per cent.” – Robert Sheppard CBC News online 10/12/2006

“The survey, which researchers emphasize is an estimate and not a precise count, gave a wide range of the possible number of Iraqi fatalities, from 426,369 to 793,663. Statistically, the survey concluded, 601,027 is the most probable death toll.” – Anna Badkhen of the San Francisco Chronicle 10/12/2006

“Researchers then estimated the death rate in Iraq at 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people before the war and 13.2 per 1,000 afterward. Applying the latter figure to the Iraqi population of about 26 million, they figured approximately 393,000 to 943,000 war-related "excess deaths" had occurred. The middle of this range, about 655,000, translates into more than 16,000 fatalities a month since the war began in March 2003. Of these, about 601,000 were estimated to be violent deaths. The remaining excess deaths were from natural causes due to breakdown of infrastructure because of the war. The numbers include combatants and civilians.” – Judith Graham of the Chicago Tribune 10/12/2006

“The researchers, reflecting the inherent uncertainties in such extrapolations, said they were 95% certain that the real number lay somewhere between 392,979 and 942,636 deaths.” – Report under “World Headlines” at @IrelandOn-Line (no author given) “The authors of the study, titled ‘The Human Cost of the War in Iraq,’ said the research carries a 95 percent ‘confidence index’ that the range of violence-related deaths is between 426,369 and 793,663.” – Brian MacQuarrie of the Boston Globe 10/12/2006 “The new study, published in the online edition of The Lancet, the British medical journal, also accepts a broad range of error, with its lead author, Gilbert Burnham, also of Johns Hopkins, saying the true figure could lie anywhere between 426,369 to 793,663.” – Sam Knight and James Hider of the Times (?) reprinted in The Australian 10/12/2006 “But the number is an estimate and not a precise count, and researchers acknowledged a margin of error that ranged from 426,369 to 793,663 deaths, the report said.” – Editor Luan Shanglin from China View 10/11/2006

“The researchers, reflecting the inherent uncertainties in such extrapolations, said they were 95 percent certain that the real number lay somewhere between 392,979 and 942,636 deaths.” – Malcom Ritter, AP Science writer as reported in the Seatle PI 10/11/2006 “For instance, while the researchers give as their best estimate for excess Iraqi deaths due to the war the number 654,965, they also say it falls within the range of 392,979 to 942,636 deaths. That's a pretty large range.” – Frank James of the Chicago Tribune “The margin of error is worth mentioning: Researchers said the true number of deaths could be anywhere from 426,369 to 793,663. The 655,000 figure, which takes into account both deaths from violence and "excess deaths," represents about two and a half percent of Iraq's population.” – CBS News Public Eye posted by Brian Montopoli 10/11/2006 “Burnham said the study's ‘confidence interval,’ the range in which researchers are 95 percent sure ‘the true answer lies,’ is from 392,000 to 942,000.” – Nadine Elsibai on Bloomberg.com 10/11/2006