Please get this on the rec list, friends. I seldom beg.
The Lancet study was right. Well, knock me over with a feather! A poll conducted by the Brits:
...estimates 1.2 million Iraqis have died since the war began.
According to the ORB poll, a survey of 1,461 adults suggested that the total number slain during more than four years of war was more than 1.2 million.
ORB said it drew its conclusion from responses to the question about those living under one roof: "How many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003?"
Based on Iraq's estimated number of households -- 4,050,597 -- it said the 1.2 million figure was reasonable.
Lancet study
Of all of Bush's anti-science lies, none has irritated me more than the denial of the truth of the Lancet study, which showed that over 600,000 Iraqis had died of violent causes since the invasion. That study was done with excellent methodology, which required visiting hundreds of families all over Iraq; imagine the courage of the researchers, who were drawn not only from the excellent faculty at Johns Hopkins, but also from scholars in Iraq. A preliminary study published in the fall of 2005 wasdismissed by Bush in December, 2005, with a clearly scripted answer to a scripted question, designed to bury the Lancet study: Bush said the number was "about 30,000.
Mr. Bush unexpectedly invited questions from the audience and he was asked about the number of Iraqi casualties in the war (video).
As a matter of policy, the White House has never commented on the Iraqi death toll since the U.S.-led invasion. So it came as a surprise when President Bush offered a number, CBS News correspondent Mark Knoller reports.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said later that there was no official U.S. estimate of Iraqi deaths and that Mr. Bush was citing media estimates.
He repeated his rejection when the full study report was published, which was supported by a Zogby poll, in the fall of 2006,
"I think that methodology has been pretty well discredited."
and dodged the question of what he thought the number should be:video
Bullshit. A complete, utter lie.
The media didn't dare to make the Lancet story front page, partly because the numbers were so big and so awful, especially compared with the reported body counts posted at icasualties (which are based on newspaper reports), and the US military estimations. But the fact of the matter is that newspaper and other "institutional" reporting in war underestimates casualties by a factor of 5-10 fold ie reported casualties are only a tenth of the reality. And that holds true here, in spades. But the media was too busy to figure this out, and too busy giving mouth service (you figure it out) to the Bushies' twisted version of the facts, to do some real reporting. So instead they publish the Bush version,
There was no way to verify the number, because the government does not provide a full count of civilian deaths. Neither does the U.S. military.
Both, however, say that independent organizations greatly exaggerate estimates of civilian casualties.
which is the exact opposite of the truth !!!
Question:
If Saddam was a criminal for killing a few hundred thousand Iraqis and Kurds, what is Bush? That is the question the Chimp wants to avoid at all costs...the question that threatens to make Paraguay, not Dallas, his retirement home.