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There remains a problem however. Using the larger sample size of the 2006 study, Burnham et al obtain the estimate 112 000 (69 000–155 000) (see page 6) for the same period as the 2004 study. In other words when they increase their sample size Burnham et al diverge even more from the Iraqi Living Conditions study.

The 2006 study shows a drop in the non-violent mortality rate from 5.4 to 4.5 in immediate post-invasion period. (See Table 3.) Yet the 2004 study shows a sizeable increase in the non-violent death rate.

The point is that the Lancet number includes a significant number of non-violent deaths and deaths due to criminal violence – both can be significant.

According to the last two columns of table 2 of the 2004 study accident related deaths more than doubled after the invasion, heart attacks and strokes nearly doubled, infectious diseases quintupled (they were small to start with) and neonatal deaths nearly doubled.

By my reckoning nearly half the excess deaths were non-violent once Falluja is excluded (the authors view it as singular and non-representative and so do I, it needs to be treated separately and then added in later. It’s not clear if the Iraqi Living Condition study includes Falluja.)

There are also significant number of the deaths due to increased criminality. According to the text 7 of the post invasion violent deaths were criminal (page 5) i.e. out of a total of 90 post-invasion deaths (subtracting out Falluja), roughly 44 are excess (given that the pre and post invasions populations are close) i.e. 15% of all excess violent deaths are criminal.

So if 50% of the excess deaths are non-violent and 15% of the remaining violent deaths are criminal that leaves between 40 and 45 thousand due to ‘warfare’.

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It’s true there is some ambiguity about “war-related” deaths, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to think that war-related deaths and violent deaths are very close.

In the post, I point out that the 2006 Lancet article does cite the ILCS. My point was that the Lancet authors do not discuss the ILCS estimate of war-related deaths, even though it: (1) differs widely from their estimate of “excess” deaths, and (2) has a much smaller confidence interval, indicating far greater precision.

The Lancet studies are much clearer. They are trying to estimate ALL excess deaths due to the increased mortality after the invasion. Many of these deaths are non-violent. According to the 2006 Burnham et al Lancet Study

In 2004, we did a survey of 33 randomly selected
clusters of 30 households with a mean of eight residents
throughout Iraq to determine the excess mortality during
the 17¬?8 months after the 2003 invasion. The survey
estimated excess mortality of at least 98 000 (95% CI
8000–194 000) after excluding, as an outlier, the high
mortality reported in the Falluja cluster. Over half of
excess deaths recorded in the 2004 study were from
violent causes, and about half of the violent deaths
occurred in Falluja.

The 2006 Lancet Study does cite the Iraq Living Condition survey by the way.

It seems they have commented in an email:

Some basics I can clarify:

Mortality rates clearly started to decline among children in Iraq in 2000 or 2001; they just didnt decline as much as they could have. The Min of Health in 2005 had only hospital data for comparisons, maeaning in a time of insecurity that no infomration was really available on the wider population of kids. Perhaps they are right that diarrheal death rates declined, I hope so; I havent seen these data.

The FAFO study[i.e. ILCS] doesnt provide guidance on the question of child mortality rates. Their death reporting is so far from ALL OTHER FIELD_BASED SOURCES that it cannot be believed. No surpise, as it was a total of 4 qustions out of 100 pages of interview.

We are comparing the survey data, most importantly the 1999 UNICEF survey, with census data, to get a better view. In the latter years, 1995 – 1998, the two agree closely on mortality rates around 100 or higher, and a rise from pre-sancitons period of 10% or more. This is likely the best info we will have, unless the 2007 census is surprisingly well done.

I am acutally working on this issue right now and will eventually have a paper on it to share with you.

Richard

Elsewhere I’ve seen claims that other surveys in Iraq have gotten very high response rates. I haven’t actually checked that claim.

If true, I wonder whether that says something about the willingness of Iraqis to answer questions when surveyed by complete strangers, or whether it says something about the people doing the interviews.

Tim Lambert has tried to reconcile the ILCS figures with the Lancet figures by taking a subset of the Lancet figures and declaring them “war related”, and other violent death not “war related”. I am not sure how serious he is about that, and what he’s actually trying to say with it either.

Finally, I do have a problem with mortality figures in general, if you look at the ILCS, which is a large survey, and at infant mortality in particular you’ll see that there are some glaring inconsistencies, which the authors of the ILCS survey report point to, but cannot explain, namely neonatal mortality in the South is anomalously low compared to the Centre region, and the ILCS values of infant mortality for the 1990’s are in disagreement with previous large studies performed back then.

I wonder what’s actually been done to validate these kinds of studies.