Casualties in Iraq. A comparison with Lebanon.
Over at Atrios a character called Jamshid linked to a web site that pooh-poohed the recent Lancet report by highlighting that 15 years of civil war combat in Lebanon only produced 150,000 casualties and that it was impossible the Invasion of Iraq could have produced 100,000 in two years of combat. "Okay" I thought to myself, "maybe Lancet got it wrong". Lebanon and Iraq are somewhat similar in intensity so there can't have been as many deaths. Same types of militias, gangs and ethnic tensions= similar casualty figures. Then it occurred to me that Lebanon is significantly smaller than Iraq. Lebanon had approx 2, 668,000 residents at the end of hostilities. Iraq has a population of about 20,000,000. So suppose the two conflicts have about the same rate of death.
Here's an URL:
http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com/2004/10/ass-cole.html
So I got to work and found out a few things about the casualty stats in Lebanon. Yes there were 150,000 dead, however 17, 415 people also went missing (presumed dead?), and another 200,000 were injured. The total casualties in Lebanon were actually approx 367,415. "Fuck me" I thought, "the Lebanese had it pretty bad".
I've calculated that the total casualty accumulation for Lebanon is 13.7% of the population, with an annual rate of casualties of .918%. The dead and missing represent an accumulation over 15 years' of 5.62% and an annual rate of 0.4% dead and missing in the Lebanese population. So if this guy's link between the casualties of Lebanon's civil war and the American invasion of Iraq hold true, we will expect to see an annual death rate of about 0.4% and an annual casualty rate of 0.9%. (Hey, he sought to compare the two conflicts to debunk the Lancet report, not me!)
Lancet's report suggests that the conflict has directly and indirectly lead to the death of 100, 000 Iraqis. This represents an overall accumulation of 0.5% over 2 years, and a rate of 0.25% over a single year. The Lancet suggests an annual death rate significantly lower than the rate in Lebanon. You may calculate for yourselves what sort of total casualties might be produced if the invasion lead to an annual casualty rate of 0.9% --it is a lot more than 100,000 my dears.
Jamshid, Tom et al (Kaplan at Slate take note) should bear in mind that Lebanon's casualty figures do not include death disease and hunger and poor sanitation caused by the conflict--just casualties directly produced by combat. If the war in Iraq is as intense as the fight in Lebanon, as this particular Lancet critic suggested: we find the annual casualty rates in Lebanon tend to reinforce Lancet's findings rather than disprove them.
Even if we arbitrarily reduce the Iraq population in calculating the casualty rates to 10,000, 000 or 16,000,000 to estimate more peaceful areas like Kurdistan: the death rates (assuming the same level of conflict intensity as Lebanon) of this conflict are still firmly tied to the Lancet's 100,000 figure. Furthermore, if the Iraq conflict has produced the same sort of war as Lebanon, as suggested by Lancet's critics the higher range of 200,000 casualties seems even more plausible partly because it represents an annual casualty rate of about 0.5% which is more in line with the rates in Lebanon. The alarm bells ought to be going off in press, investigations and survey's lauched, but all we get is conspiratorial silence over how much damage we've really done. It makes me sick.
