Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

100,000 Civilians Dead in Iraq

Posted by michael on from the one-is-a-tragedy-100,000-is-a-statistic dept.

asldihf writes "New Scientist is reporting that 100,000 civilians in Iraq are now dead due to America's war in Iraq. Make sure you vote next week."

7 of 478 comments (clear)

  1. different stats by cheeseSource · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

    Different sites have different stats, but one civilian death is one too many.

    --
    (Sponsored by cheeseSource for President 2012)
    1. Re:different stats by Leftist+Troll · · Score: 4, Informative
      Iraq Body Count only includes verified deaths reported by credible media outlets. The 100,000 stat is an estimate based on door-to-door surveys, which should be more accurate. That's why I made it my sig yesterday. Also, note this excerpt from the VOA article my sig links to:
      The researchers did not include deaths in the volatile city of Fallujah in their final analysis, saying that would have skewed the death toll much higher.
  2. Re:Yes, and don't forget by theghost · · Score: 4, Informative

    RTFA
    The most common cause of death is as a direct result of violence, mostly caused by coalition air strikes...

    --
    The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
  3. Only 50% higher death rate by slughead · · Score: 4, Informative

    The overall risk of death was 1.5 times more after the invasion than before.

    That also includes the invasion itself. At this rate, eventually it may go down.

    --
    Latewire
  4. AP's story on this is troublesome by scupper · · Score: 4, Informative
    AP is running a story on this which goes into a little more detail,

    Household Survey Sees 100,000 Iraqi Deaths

    And there are some troblesome excerpts:
    • There is no official figure for the number of Iraqis killed since the conflict began
    • some non-governmental estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000.
    • concede that the data they based their projections on were of "limited precision,"
    • quality of the information depends on the accuracy of the household interviews used for the study
    • report was released just days before the U.S. presidential election, and the lead researcher said he wanted it that way.
    • possible that they may have zoned in on hotspots that might not be representative of the death toll across Iraq
    • more household clusters would have improved the precision of the report
  5. Bull$hit by thedocdm · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm calling BS on this article. They conducted a sampling survey to generate these numbers? Come on now. I'm more inclined to believe iraqbodycount.org and the media always gets it wrong (and never corrects themselves.) And to blame most of the deaths on the US bombing? Total horse $hit. Have innocent people died in Iraq? Hell yes. Have many of them been our fault? Yes. Have any of them been deliberate? No. Half of the innocent lives lost over here, by estimation and observation for the past eight months I've been in Baghdad (being a little involved in intelligence reports), come from the insurgents/terrorists. Their road-side bombs and car bombs as often target civilians and Iraqi security forces (the ones who take huge personal risk upon themselves and their families to try to make a difference in the future of their country) as they target Coalition Forces. This article is BS BS BS BS!

  6. Not *quite* entirely, but close. by Onan · · Score: 4, Informative

    As TFA notes: this is 100,000 deaths above the death rate for a previous pre-war period, and; the most common cause of these deaths was airstrikes.

    So unless you're suggesting that their countrymen have an extensive air force that they'd been planning on using regardless of the US's invasion, no, it's pretty accurate to characterize these deaths as being the result of American acts.