Les Roberts

U.S. must face huge death toll of Iraqi civilians

Gilbert Burnham, Les Roberts — 2007-10-24T07:42:00Z

Not wanting to think about civilian deaths in Iraq has become almost universal. But ignorance of the Iraqi death toll is no longer an option.

An Associated Press poll in February found that the average American believed about 9,900 Iraqis had been killed since the end of major combat operations in 2003. Recent evidence suggests that things in Iraq may be 100 times worse than Americans realize.

News report tallies suggest that about 75,000 Iraqis have died since the U.S.-led invasion. But a study of 13 war-affected countries presented at a recent Harvard conference found that more than 80 percent of violent deaths in conflicts go unreported by the press and governments. (...)

- / Baltimore Sun

Iraq's death toll is far worse than our leaders admit

Les Roberts — 2007-02-14T07:39:00Z

On both sides of the Atlantic, a process of spinning science is preventing a serious discussion about the state of affairs in Iraq.

The government in Iraq claimed last month that since the 2003 invasion between 40,000 and 50,000 violent deaths have occurred. Few have pointed out the absurdity of this statement.

There are three ways we know it is a gross underestimate. First, if it were true, including suicides, South Africa, Colombia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia have experienced higher violent death rates than Iraq over the past four years. If true, many North and South American cities and Sub-Saharan Africa have had a similar murder rate to that claimed in Iraq. For those of us who have been in Iraq, the suggestion that New Orleans is more violent seems simply ridiculous. (...)

- / Independent

Kucinich-Paul Congressional Hearing on Civilian Casualties in Iraq

Gilbert Burnham, Juan Cole, Dennis Kucinich, Les Roberts — 2006-12-13T18:31:00Z

Here is the transcript of Monday's hearing on Capitol Hill on the Lancet study, at which I spoke along with two co-authors of the study. The video can be seen at the C-Span archive page (scroll down to the bottom). Thanks to Representatives Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul for the kind invitation to speak at the hearing.

December 11, 2006 Monday

NEWS CONFERENCE WITH REPRESENTATIVE DENNIS KUCINICH (D-OH) AND REPRESENTATIVE RON PAUL (R-TX); TOPIC: CIVILIAN CASUALTIES IN IRAQ OTHER; PARTICIPANTS: DR. GILBERT BURNHAM, M.D., CO-DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR REFUGEE AND DISASTER RESPONSE, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY JUAN COLE, PROFESSOR OF MODERN MIDDLE EAST HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LES ROBERTS, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, CLINICAL PUBLIC HEALTH, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY; LOCATION: 2247 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:

NEWS CONFERENCE WITH REPRESENTATIVE DENNIS KUCINICH (D-OH) AND REPRESENTATIVE RON PAUL (R-TX) TOPIC: CIVILIAN CASUALTIES IN IRAQ OTHER PARTICIPANTS: DR. GILBERT BURNHAM, M.D., CO-DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR REFUGEE AND DISASTER RESPONSE, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY JUAN COLE, PROFESSOR OF MODERN MIDDLE EAST HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LES ROBERTS, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, CLINICAL PUBLIC HEALTH, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LOCATION: 2247

RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C. TIME: 10:06 A.M. EST DATE: MONDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2006

Lancet Report Co-Author Responds to Questions

Les Roberts — 2006-11-01T10:44:00Z

As described in our October 18 Media Alert, 'Democracy And Debate - Killing Iraq' , a recent study published in The Lancet medical journal estimated that 655,000 Iraqi people have been killed as a result of the March 2003 US-UK invasion of Iraq.

The media coverage has been appalling - the words 'Lancet' and 'Iraq' have appeared in national UK newspaper articles some 30 times, with many of these mentions in passing. There has been no serious attempt to examine the Lancet's figures, to explain how they compare to earlier findings from different studies. Anyone aspiring to understand the issue could do so only by visiting small, alternative websites, such as those run by Tim Lambert (www.scienceblogs.com/deltoid) and Stephen Soldz (http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/ 2006/10/24/iraq-body-count-finds-a-task-worth-their-time/), and our own message board.

To its credit, the BBC website has tried harder than most mainstream media to report the issue honestly. In particular, BBC world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds - who has frequently engaged with Media Lens readers - responded to complaints by agreeing to invite questions from members of the public and to forward them to the authors of the Lancet report. On October 30, the BBC posted an edited version of answers from Les Roberts:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/6099020.stm

Below, we are publishing Roberts' unedited answers. We have also added Roberts' response to an editorial by Steven Moore in the Wall Street Journal. (...)

- / Media Lens

Co-Author of Medical Study Estimating 650,000 Iraqi Deaths Defends Research in the Face of White House Dismissal

Les Roberts — 2006-10-12T22:57:00Z

More than 650,000 people have died in Iraq since the U.S. led invasion of the country began in March of 2003. This is according to a new study published in the scientific journal, The Lancet. The study was conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. Researchers based their findings on interviews with a random sampling of households taken in clusters across Iraq. The study is an update to a prior one compiled by many of the same researchers. That study estimated that around 100,000 Iraqis died in the first 18 months after the invasion.

Les Roberts joins us now from Syracuse, New York — He is one of the main researchers of the study. He was with Johns Hopkins when he co-authored the study but has just taken a post at Columbia University.

- / Democracy Now!

Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey

Gilbert Burnham, Shannon Doocy, Riyadh Lafta, Les Roberts — 2006-10-11T16:57:47Z

Summary

Background
An excess mortality of nearly 100 000 deaths was reported in Iraq for the period March, 2003-September, 2004, attributed to the invasion of Iraq. Our aim was to update this estimate.

Methods
Between May and July, 2006, we did a national cross-sectional cluster sample survey of mortality in Iraq. 50 clusters were randomly selected from 16 Governorates, with every cluster consisting of 40 households. Information on deaths from these households was gathered.

Findings
Three misattributed clusters were excluded from the final analysis; data from 1849 households that contained 12 801 individuals in 47 clusters was gathered. 1474 births and 629 deaths were reported during the observation period. Pre-invasion mortality rates were 5·5 per 1000 people per year (95% CI 4·3-7·1), compared with 13·3 per 1000 people per year (10·9-16·1) in the 40 months post-invasion. We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654 965 (392 979-942 636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2·5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601 027 (426 369-793 663) were due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire.

Interpretation
The number of people dying in Iraq has continued to escalate. The proportion of deaths ascribed to coalition forces has diminished in 2006, although the actual numbers have increased every year. Gunfire remains the most common cause of death, although deaths from car bombing have increased.

Do Iraqi Civilian Casualties Matter?

Les Roberts — 2006-02-08T17:44:00Z

[Editor's Note: This essay is part of a series of Audits of the Conventional Wisdom, a project of the Center for International Studies at MIT.]

The often-disputed total number of casualties are significant because they may add up to violations of the Geneva Convention.

A disturbing thing happened to me in Afghanistan last May while working on a project to install wells in villages. After a delightful month of working in a rural province, filled with welcoming leaders and offers of tea at every house, the mood suddenly changed. A young man walked up to my 42-year-old female American colleague and bashed her in the face. As we collected our interviewers and headed back to the vehicles, children from the village pelted us with stones. This violence against anything foreign played out in hundreds of locations across Afghanistan that day. The sudden burst of hatred for all things seen as related to the occupying Americans was primarily the combination of two things: plans for the Afghan Government to grant the United States a long-term lease on an airbase, and the simultaneous accusation in Newsweek magazine the day before that in Guantanamo Bay, U.S. military personnel had defiled the Koran.

A more disturbing thing happened that same month. Accusations by Amnesty International that a pattern of abuse has been documented in Guantanamo Bay were brusquely dismissed by President Bush. This was the most recent highlight in what I believe to be the greatest threat to U.S. national security: the image that the United States is a violator of international laws and order and that there is no means other than violence to curb it. (...)

- / AlterNet

Study Shows Civilian Death Toll in Iraq More Than 100,000

Les Roberts — 2005-12-14T23:55:00Z

On the 1,000th day of the U.S. war on Iraq, we look at a subject that usually receives little attention — the Iraqi civilian death toll since the war began. We speak with Dr. Les Roberts, the lead researcher of a study released last year on the number of deaths in Iraq, which put the toll at more than 100,000.

President Bush was asked about the Iraqi civilian death toll on Monday following his speech at the Philadelphia World Affairs Council.

* Q: Since the inception of the Iraqi war, I'd like to know the approximate total of Iraqis who have been killed. And by Iraqis I include civilians, military, police, insurgents, translators.

* THE PRESIDENT: How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We've lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq.

President Bush's comments took many by surprise because the administration has said little over the past 1,000 days on how many Iraqis have died because of the war and occupation. Since Bush spoke on Monday, several officials denied the government was keeping a tally on Iraqi deaths. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said that Bush was "citing public estimates," not a government-produced figure. Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable said there is no official tally of civilian deaths in Iraq. However, Venable said the U.S. military does collect data on deaths from insurgent attacks. If the government did keep close tabs on Iraqi civilian deaths, they might likely find the number is far higher than 30,000.

Last year the prestigious British medical journal the Lancet published a study estimating that over 100,000 Iraqi civilians had died because of the war. The study determined that the risk of death by violence for civilians in Iraq is now 58 times higher than before the US-led invasion. We are joined in Washington by the lead researcher of that report.

- / Democracy Now!

Media Alert: Burying The Lancet - Update

John Allen Paulos, John Rentoul, Les Roberts — 2005-09-13T12:41:01Z

In our Media Alert, Burying The Lancet - Parts 1 And 2 (September 5 and 6), we focused on the media response to a November 2004 report in The Lancet which estimated nearly 100,000 excess civilians deaths in Iraq since the March 2003 US-UK invasion.

In Part Two, we cited professor of mathematics John Allen Paulos, who wrote in the Guardian:

"Given the conditions in Iraq, the sample clusters were not only small, but sometimes not random either... So what's the real number? My personal assessment, and it's only that, is that the number is somewhat more than the IBC's confirmed total, but considerably less than the Lancet figure of 100,000." (John Allen Paulos, 'The vital statistics of war,' The Guardian, December 16, 2004)

We noted that we had not found a single example anywhere in the British or US press of a commentator rejecting estimates of 1.7 million deaths in Congo produced by the same lead researcher (Les Roberts) and offering their own "personal assessment" in this way.

We were surprised to receive this reply from John Allen Paulos the following day:

"I liked your piece, MEDIA ALERT: BURYING THE LANCET - PARTS 1 AND 2. I regret making the comment in my Guardian piece that you cite: 'My personal assessment, and it's only that, is that the number is somewhat more than the IBC's confirmed total, but considerably less than the Lancet figure of 100,000.' I still have a few questions about the study (moot now), but mentioning a largely baseless 'personal assessment' was cavalier. I should simply have stated my doubts about the study's scientific neutrality given what seemed at the time like an expedient rush to publish it. John Allen Paulos Math Dept, Temple Univ" (Email to Media Lens, September 7, 2005)

We forwarded this email to Les Roberts - lead author of the Lancet report - who replied directly to Paulos:

(...)

- / Media Lens

Media Alert: Burying The Lancet - Parts 1 And 2

Mary Dejevsky, Les Roberts — 2005-09-13T12:27:00Z

"It is odd that the logic of epidemiology embraced by the press every day regarding new drugs or health risks somehow changes when the mechanism of death is their armed forces." (Les Roberts, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health)

As a test of the independence and honesty of the mass media, few tasks are more revealing than that of reporting our own government's responsibility for the killing of innocents abroad. In an age of 'converged' political parties and globalised corporate influence, few establishment groups have any interest in seeing such horrors exposed, while many have much to lose. Corporate journalists are therefore subject to two very real, competing pressures:

1) the moral, human pressure of reporting honestly our responsibility for mass killing, and

2) state-corporate pressure and flak punishing dissent and rewarding servility to power.

The results tell us much about the moral and political health of our media and our democracy.

(...)

[September 5 and September 6, 2005]

- / Media Lens

Study: Iraq Invasion Has Killed 100,000 Civilians

Amy Goodman, Les Roberts — 2004-11-02T01:29:00Z

We speak with the co-author of a new independent, peer-reviewed study that has concluded at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died because of the U.S invasion last year. - / Democracy Now!

Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey

Gilbert Burnham, Richard Garfield, Jamal Khudhairi, Riyadh Lafta, Les Roberts — 2004-10-29T22:46:28Z

The Dreyfuss Report Note: 100,000 War Crimes: The staggering research reported in the British journal Lancet shows the magnitude of the Bush administration's war crimes: 98,000 Iraqi civilians dead, including 40,000 children. And that's not even counting Fallujah.

The number of deaths is particularly shocking because the researchers measured deaths in the 18 months after March 2003 in comparison to a similar period before March 2003. But it's been widely reported the under sanctions deaths in Iraq were already very high, including among children-so the post-March '03 increase is even more significant.

The researchers didn't include Fallujah because the number of deaths there were so high they didn't want that city's dead to skew their national sample, measured in 808 Iraqi households in 33 clusters spread across Iraq. [...]

[Volume 364, Number 9445 | 30 October 2004 | PDF]

- / ZNet