The authorities are the Iraqi Health Ministry, morgues, and hospitals. The first two are to some extent controlled by Sadr's people, and in my opinion, if anything, their motives would be to cook estimates on the high side.
I don't know where else you would get death certificates, unless house calls for this sort of thing are routine.
These are also the sources used for United Nations casualty figures, which have been widely accepted here and elsewhere, including the Brookings Institute Iraq Index. See pages 3 and 4 of this typical U.N. report. These numbers may be high, they may be low, but not by that much.
And there is no way we are killing 5,000 civilians a month in military actions. Not when the attack on Fallujah, which made headlines for weeks, killed 800. There would be no way on Earth to hide that.
Their number makes no sense on any level, and I don't care how lovingly the statistics were worked out. The results still have to match the real world.
Current Events » in reply to The first point is a problem. Who are the authorities?
re: Who are the authorities?
The whole thread (38 posts)
- Johns Hopkins/Lancet pull another number out of their asses.
- Another study for comparison
- Considering no nukes, WMDs, no al-Qaeda no link to WTC - how many is too many? (n/t)
- Link to actual study
- That's nothing. Remember the ONE MILLION IRAQI CHILDREN who supposedly died due to the sanctions?
- Does it make you feel better, Tom...
- What should be disturbing....
- Cluster surveys, used in this study, are routinely used to determine rates of death in natural disasters.
- Got any idea why Bush & Co. don't keep track of Iraqi deaths?