The Dead in Iraq

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Flaws in the calculations of Iraqi war dead

There has been some renewed criticism lately of the media's alleged downplaying of the controversial Lancet study that put the number of war dead at a likely 100,000.

George Monbiot had an article in The Guardian about it last week. It drew a letter in response linked to at the top of this post from one Gil Elliot.

Strangely enough, the book which he wrote ("The 20th Century Book of the Dead") is one which I bought out of vague curiosity in a second hand shop in (I think) the early 1980's. It explains the numbers of deaths caused by humans (through war, deliberately induced famine, etc) throughout the 20th century, and it cautiously details the uncertainties and methods by which the numbers had been calculated. It certainly alerted me while relatively young to the fact that Stalin killed many, many more millions of his own subjects than Hitler ever did. (Being a point still not a matter of common knowledge in the West, in my opinion.)

Anyway, I have not followed the argument about the Lancet study as closely as I could. My reaction still remains the same: while the survey method might well work in some societies, I doubt that it would work so well in the, umm, highly excitable society that seems to be in place in Iraq. In other words, if ever there were a place where I would have cause to doubt the accuracy of answers to a survey on how many deaths you knew of, it would be Iraq. And bearing in mind that their study gave a possible (though very unlikely) minimum of 8,000 deaths, I would think that it is entirely justifiable to take a figure well within the lower range of possibilities in the study as being more accurate than the 100,000 "most likely" figure, given other information out of the country.

The authors of the study and their defenders complain that the Western leaders didn't question their methodology when used in other conflicts. Well, maybe they should have, but in any case when they rush their study into print in a highly politicised way, they should expect some pretty careful scrutiny and skepticism. The fact that they are professionals at this work doesn't cut much ice with me. Sometimes common sense points you in the right direction faster than science does.