Story of the Day: WashPo's Fuzzy Math on Iraqi Death Toll

In assessing the number of Iraqi deaths in 2006, the Washington Post reports:

The Health Ministry's full-year death toll of 22,950, although incomplete, is higher than the 13,896 violent deaths of civilians, police officers and soldiers reported Jan. 1 by Iraq's ministries of defense, health and interior. The United Nations, in a November report, estimated that more than 28,000 Iraqi civilians had died violently in the first 10 months of 2006, but that count was disputed by the government. The differences in the numbers could not be reconciled.

Yet later in the article, WashPo reporter Sudarsan Raghavan writes:

The Health Ministry data are believed to be more reliable than those issued by other sources because they are based solely on death certificates. But the Health Ministry, as a policy, does not publicly release these statistics. The ministry is under the control of the Shiite religious party of Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia is behind much of the sectarian killing.

“The Health Ministry data are believed to be more reliable” by whom exactly? The Shiite religious party, headed by Moqtada al-Sadr, that controls the ministry, which Raghavan subsequently, and matter-of-factly, notes “is behind much of the sectarian killing”? Moreover, is Raghavan suggesting Moqtada al-Sadr and his minions are more accurate than John Hopkins University’s school of public health estimate, which put the total death toll of Iraqis since the start of the war at more than 650,000?

It would appear so. Raghavan mentions the John Hopkins study 26 paragraphs into the article, in the fourth-to-last paragraph, and seemingly for the sole purpose to discredit it:

A study on Iraqi mortality rates published in October by the Lancet medical journal estimated that more than 600,000 Iraqis had died from violence since the invasion. That number was extrapolated from population surveys rather than a compilation of actual deaths. The U.S. and Iraqi governments, as well as Iraq Body Count, dismissed the Lancet findings as inaccurate.

You don’t say? The U.S. and Iraqi governments dismissed the Lancet findings as inaccurate? As well as the British-based Iraq Body Count? Of which Raghavan writes in the prior paragraph:

The group relies on deaths reported by the news media, and suggests on its Web site that its totals are an underrepresentation because "many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported." Critics have accused the group of grossly underreporting Iraqi deaths.

Well, they sound reliable.

Finally, Raghavan reports, “That number [more than 600,000 Iraqis deaths] was extrapolated from population surveys rather than a compilation of actual deaths.” At best, that statement is misleading.

Gilbert Burnham, the study’s lead author, specifically said, "One of the real risks in this is that people report deaths that don't occur, so we did ask for death certificates. And in 92 percent of cases, they were provided."

The Washington Post has helped this White House and the puppet Iraqi government frame the debate on the Iraqi death toll by weighting the findings of those who are most suspect. This is a grave disservice to the dead as well as the living.

War's Toll on Iraqis Put at 22,950 in '06
By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post

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WashPo's Fuzzy Math on Iraqi Death Toll