Patterico's Pontifications

6/25/2006

The Power of the Jump™: L.A. Times Buries Important Facts About Civilian Deaths in Iraq

Filed under: Dog Trainer,Terrorism,War — Patterico @ 7:12 pm



(Note: “The Power of the Jump”™ is a semi-regular feature of this site, documenting examples of the Los Angeles Times’s use of its back pages to hide information that its editors don’t want you to see.)

Today’s L.A Times reports on Page One:

War’s Iraqi Death Toll Tops 50,000

A deck headline reads:

Higher than the U.S. estimate, the tally likely is undercounted. Proportionately, it is as if 570,000 Americans were slain in three years.

And the story opens:

At least 50,000 Iraqis have died violently since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to statistics from the Baghdad morgue, the Iraqi Health Ministry and other agencies — a toll 20,000 higher than previously acknowledged by the Bush administration.

It is not until Page A29 that we learn that the overwhelming number of deaths are the result of terrorist attacks:

At the Baghdad morgue, the vast majority of bodies processed had been shot execution-style. Many showed signs of torture — drill holes, burns, missing eyes and limbs, officials said. Others had been strangled, beheaded, stabbed or beaten to death.

These are not people killed by the United States, folks. These are victims of terrorism — many at the hands of the same Baathist thugs who ran the country and tortured people to death before we ever got there. The next two paragraphs make this clear:

The morgue records show a predominantly civilian toll; the hospital records gathered by the Health Ministry do not distinguish between civilians, combatants and security forces.

But Health Ministry records do differentiate causes of death. Almost 75% of those who died violently were killed in “terrorist acts,” typically bombings, the records show. The other 25% were killed in what were classified as military clashes. A health official described the victims as “innocent bystanders,” many shot by Iraqi or American troops, in crossfire or accidentally at checkpoints.

Were all these deaths caused by the war? To know that, you’d think you’d want to know how many similar deaths were occurring before the invasion. Oddly, this information is missing from the article.

But you can read it here.

John Hinderaker attempts to provide some of the missing perspective today, looking at the violent death rates for Iraqi civilians during Saddam’s rule. He points to an article by John Burns, which says that

figures of a million dead Iraqis, in war and through terror, may not be far from the mark, in a country of 22 million people.

And if you know anything about Saddam’s history, the beheadings and torture are nothing new.

If you like, we can use a more conservative estimate provided by liberal Molly Ivins, who once had to eat crow on this very issue. In her article apologizing for being flip about the number of people killed by Saddam, she said:

According to Human Rights Watch, Hussein killed several hundred thousand of his fellow citizens. The massacre of the Kurdish Barzani tribe in 1983 killed at least 8,000; the infamous gas attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja killed 5,000 in 1988; and seized documents from Iraqi security organizations show 182,000 were murdered during the Anfal ethnic cleansing campaign against Kurds, also in 1988.

In 1991, following the first Gulf War, both the Kurds and the Shiites rebelled. The allied forces did not intervene, and Saddam brutally suppressed both uprisings and drained the southern marshes that had been home to a local population for more than 5,000 years.

Saddam’s regime left 271 mass graves, with more still being discovered. That figure alone was the source for my original mistaken estimate of 20,000. Saddam’s widespread use of systematic torture, including rape, has been verified by the U.N. Committee on Human Rights and other human rights groups over the years.

There are wildly varying estimates of the number of civilians, especially babies and young children, who died as a result of the sanctions that followed the Gulf War. While it is true that the ill-advised sanctions were put in place by the United Nations, I do not see that that lessens Hussein’s moral culpability, whatever blame attaches to the sanctions themselves — particularly since Saddam promptly corrupted the Oil for Food Program put in place to mitigate the effects of the sanctions, and used the proceeds to build more palaces, etc.

There have been estimates as high as 1 million civilians killed by Saddam, though most agree on the 300,000 to 400,000 range . . .

If the number is 400,000, over 24 years of Saddam’s rule, that averages out to 16,666 per year. Multiply that by three (for the three years of the war), and you get . . . 50,000 — the same number of civilians killed during the three years of the war, as reported by The Times.

In other words, the violent death rate may not be any higher now than it was during Saddam’s reign.

Hinderaker also notes comparisons between the murder rates in Iraq and certain cities in America. This made me think immediately of Compton, the city where I work as a Deputy District Attorney. Last year Compton had 72 murders in a city that measured 93,493 in the 2000 census. That’s a murder rate of 77 per 100,000.

The current murder rate in Iraq, not counting Baghdad, is 22.6 per 100,000, as calculated by Hinderaker. That’s about 1/3 the murder rate of Compton. Yet the L.A. Times says that “the entire country [is] a battleground.”

That’s clearly not true of the entire country — but it is, unfortunately, quite true of Baghdad, where things are far more grim. In Baghdad, where most of the murders take place, the current murder rate is about 431 per 100,000. That’s about 5.5 times worse than Compton in 2005.

That’s bad.

But then, Iraq has always been a dangerous place. As Hinderaker says:

[F]or the first time in a generation, the murderers and beheaders are hunted men rather than agents of a tyrannical government. The sacrifices now being made in Iraq need not be in vain, as long as Iraqis do not lose their commitment to freedom, and Americans do not lose their nerve.

Well said.

P.S. Some commenters mock the notion that it’s a good thing that Iraq is no worse off today than it was under Saddam. Well, for one thing, the L.A. Times tries to imply that it is — so the point is that the paper is being misleading. But secondly, it’s petty and short-sighted to think that you can transform a country like this completely in the course of three years. One very important change has occurred: it’s no longer the government doing the killing; it’s terrorists on the run. Do snarky lefties really think that fact is unimportant?

43 Responses to “The Power of the Jump™: L.A. Times Buries Important Facts About Civilian Deaths in Iraq”

  1. In other words, the violent death rate may not be any higher now than it was during Saddam’s reign.

    The LAT should have made more clear that 3 years after the invasion, our Iraq is as deadly as under saddam.

    actus (6234ee)

  2. Well, they made it sound like it was worse now than before.

    But yes, terrorists are still deadly there.

    But it’s not the government. Do you think that makes any difference at all, actus?

    Patterico (50c3cd)

  3. …the violent death rate may not be any higher now than it was during Saddam’s reign. – Patterico

    Oh what a relief! The result of our voluntary, pre-emptive war is not any worse than when Saddam ruled. So everything’s just peachy then. Isn’t it?

    No, not really. Talk about the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”

    Psyberian (dd13d6)

  4. I guess if you really think it’s never going to get better, that’s one thing.

    I think it will, if we don’t lose hope.

    The way I look at it, places like this can’t be cured overnight. It takes time — but it makes a difference that it’s not the government doing the killing.

    Patterico (50c3cd)

  5. But it’s not the government. Do you think that makes any difference at all, actus?

    We are still accountable if these warring factions kill each other on our watch. This is our broken pot now. If the power struggles are not controlled, it makes us look weak, irresponsible or both.

    Psyberian (dd13d6)

  6. They will be, if we don’t cut and run.

    The point is that the “broken pot” analogy doesn’t work, because it implies that the pot was intact before. It wasn’t.

    Patterico (50c3cd)

  7. The “broken pot” analogy is good for at least making one thing clear: Iraq wasn’t our responsibility before the war, but now it is.

    Psyberian (dd13d6)

  8. I agree with that.

    Which is why we can’t cut and run.

    Do you agree with that?

    Patterico (50c3cd)

  9. But it’s not the government. Do you think that makes any difference at all, actus?

    I think people know that the problem in Iraq is bombings killing people. I suppose it makes a big difference that now the government is a majority, and thus if it runs any death squads, its against the minority.

    actus (6234ee)

  10. Why do you bother, Patterico?

    Allah (4ba106)

  11. Sometimes I wonder.

    Patterico (50c3cd)

  12. Actually, I don’t think that many people want to just drop everything and get out of there in say a month; which is what “cut and run” seems to imply.

    What about a time-table for withdrawal over the course of a year? I’m not totally convinced either way on that question yet.

    There doesn’t seem to be a good solution to this war. We just thought we could waltz over there, swing our member around in their face, and they’d fall to their knees. ‘Didn’t happen that way though, did it? (Sorry, I lapsed into J. Goldstein mode there for a moment.)

    Psyberian (dd13d6)

  13. Heh. Though I’m not sure he says “member.”

    Patterico (50c3cd)

  14. Allah, what’s with the untoward screen name? Calling yourself “God?” Come on… That sounds like a mental condition right off the bat.

    Psyberian (dd13d6)

  15. I got the name from Jerome Armstrong, who did my chart for me back in 2002. Saturn had aligned with Pluto and Mercury was at a “near exact” with the Horsehead Nebula. “Thus shall you call yourself ‘Allah,'” sayeth Jerome.

    What can I say? When a leader of the reality-based community gives you a handle, you don’t ask questions.

    Actually, the name comes from an old parody website I used to run. The website died but the alias stuck. Patterico knows.

    Allah (4ba106)

  16. Senator John Kerry (D-MA), who served in Vietnam, said the following to the Council on Foreign Relations in December 2003.

    “I fear that in the run-up to the 2004 election, the administration is considering what is tantamount to a cut-and-run strategy. Their sudden embrace of accelerated Iraqification and American troop withdrawal dates, without adequate stability, is an invitation to failure. The hard work of rebuilding Iraq must not be dictated by the schedule of the next American election.

    I have called for the administration to transfer sovereignty, and they must transfer it to the Iraqi people as quickly as circumstances permit. But it would be a disaster and a disgraceful betrayal of principle to speed up the process simply to lay the groundwork for a politically expedient withdrawal of American troops. That could risk the hijacking of Iraq by terrorist groups and former Ba’athists”.

    Now, the question is: Was Kerry against cutting and running before he was for it? Or was he against cutting and running if GWB might beat him to the punch? Or, is Kerry the biggest fool to ever hit the big time?

    Black Jack (d8da01)

  17. Drink the Kool-Aid. After all, it is better to die valiantly and administer the cyanide to those we purport to protect than it is to “cut and run.”

    But a small price (2500+ of ours, 50,000 of those we are protecting, and half-a-trillion $$ that the oil revenues were supposed to pay for) to fight them “over there” so “we won’t have to fight them over here.” Yup, not too many roadside bombs in chicago lately. Oh, wait a minute… 9/11 9/11 9/11.

    nosh (d8da01)

  18. Bring back Saddam, man. He’ll get the job done. He can heal the wounds.

    He can make it good again.

    Allah (4ba106)

  19. [ Caveat — Much as xerox is used to describe copying, I apologize to the fine folks who manufacture and market Kool-Aid. While widely cited as the drink administered during the suicides and poisonings at Jonestown, that was really a knock-off called Flavour-Aide. It is just that this is not well-known. So I will admit to being somewhat inaccurate in the use of the slogan to the effect of making my reference meaningful. ]

    nosh (d8da01)

  20. On the back page of the OC Register is the buried story of the latest battle in Afghanistan, where we killed 80 terrorists, with three coalitio soldiers slightly injured, and would have killed the rest, except the “extremists” used human shields for cover to get out of the village.

    Hey, maybe it’s time for you to fisk the OCR!

    Patricia (2cc180)

  21. Liberal appeasers give aid and comfort to head choppers and torturers.

    Carlos (98df3a)

  22. And the story about the two American soldiers training Iraqis who were killed by their own trainees? And how the Pentagon kept the report secret for the better part of a year, not even telling the parents.

    If you so much believe in this war effort then join up, or enlist your sons and daughters.

    nosh (d8da01)

  23. Or at the very least, demand that the George W. Administration admit the economic costs of this intervention and raise taxes to pay for it, rather than hide it in supplemental bills that nobody can vote against because “We must support the troops” and so the bill is placed right onto the deficit.

    nosh (d8da01)

  24. How does one “enlist [their] sons and daughters”? Isn’t that their decision?

    Patterico (50c3cd)

  25. That’s the point nosh and, I’m afraid many others, are missing. Our President and our soldiers are doing this so our sons and daughters won’t have to.

    nk (956ea1)

  26. P — From the year of your bar admission, I’d estimate you are still under 40, or that you were significantly so in September, 2001. Why aren’t you spending weekends with the National Guard rather than blogging?

    nosh (d8da01)

  27. Nosh,

    Maybe you want us to drill our own teeth, too? Society has advanced a long way. We now have primary, secondary and tertiary occupations. Leave war to those who are good at war and blogging to those who are good at blogging.

    nk (956ea1)

  28. So nk, the war on terror is important enough for “other people” to risk their lives and shed their blood. Or at least disrupt their lives and sacrifice. Leave that to the “specialists.”

    National Guard service was beneath George W., it is beneath you, and it is beneath Patterico. What sanctimonious frauds.

    nosh (d8da01)

  29. >>>What sanctimonious frauds.

    nosh,

    your chickenhawk meme is a fraud. It’s no more valid than telling someone he can’t call the cops until he becomes one. So law enforcement is important enough for “other people” to risk their lives and shed their blood, but not you? What a fraud you are! No, really, you are. lol! It’s clever rhetoric, but empty and fraudulent. You use that chickenhawk meme– not to encourage folks to enlist– but to stifle debate. It’s contemptible.

    Carlos (98df3a)

  30. P — From the year of your bar admission, I’d estimate you are still under 40, or that you were significantly so in September, 2001. Why aren’t you spending weekends with the National Guard rather than blogging?

    nosh,

    I’m 37.

    You haven’t been reading this site very long, so you probably don’t know that 1) I was a very reluctant supporter of the war, as I am generally anti-war at heart, and 2) I wouldn’t have supported the decision to go to war if I had known at the time what we know now.

    However, I reluctantly supported the decision based on what we knew at the time, and now that we’re there, it seems to me that we have to see it through.

    I have the advantage of having met Iraqis whose lives have been bettered by our invasion; I’d bet everything in my wallet right now that you haven’t.

    If our all-volunteer army doesn’t stay at levels to make that possible, we’ll have to reconsider.

    So your “chickenhawk” style comments pretty much roll off my back.

    Finally: you know plenty about me and I know very little about you, other than that you are a defense attorney based in Los Angeles. Perhaps I have met you; I have no idea. I have great respect for what defense attorneys do, and I might like you personally if we met (maybe we have).

    But please don’t take great offense if I don’t take what you say too seriously if you’re going to take potshots at me while hiding behind a pseudonym. If you’re going to make personal comments about me and look me up on the State Bar web site, that’s fine — there’s no secrets here, my page is right here. But if you think I’m going to get my nose bent out of shape owing to nasty comments made by someone too gutless to attach a name to them, then you have misjudged me.

    I hope you keep reading.

    Patterico (50c3cd)

  31. I mean, between enlisting and letting everyone know your true name . . . which do you think takes more courage?

    I say enlisting. Yet you remain, simply, “nosh.”

    And I’m the coward?

    Patterico (50c3cd)

  32. Nosh,

    Since we both like Pink Floyd we may have other things in common so I do not preclude the possibility that we might get to know each other well enough to judge each other’s contributions to society. But your argument is a fallacy. I won’t even argue the fact that we have an all volunteer army. Or that there was no time in our history when a significant number of people did not want to be soldiers/warriors/raiders. I’ll just rephrase the argument you do not want to to recognize: We cannot all play first violin. Some of us have to push wind through the trombone.
    You know, produce food, build houses, fight crime, defend people who have been arrested …. I do grant you this: War is an unnatural thing in which the old bury the young instead of the young burying the old. I do not wish it on anybody. I think this one was necessary and unavoidable. Sadam Hussein is a monster for whom the hangman is long overdue. Do not think the less of me if I do not consider myself the next Audie Murphy and leave the job to others better able to do it instead of undertaking it myself.

    nk (956ea1)

  33. BTW: For those fortunate enough to have avoided Sociology in the ’70s, producing food is a primary occupation, building houses is a secondary occupation and being a lawyer is a tertiary occupation. I do not know where to place soldier. I suppose in the caveman days it was a primary occupation and for much of known history a secondary occupation. It may be a tertiary occupation now. With all the technology it is certainly no job for amateurs.

    nk (956ea1)

  34. nosh?

    oh, brave Sir nosh . . .

    Patterico (50c3cd)

  35. Does the death rate in Iraq under Saddam include Iraqi deaths from the pointless wars of aggression Saddam launched against his neighboring countries? Such as the decade long war with Iran?

    Brad (bd3648)

  36. Patterico, actually much of the current killing is being done by the government (or is tolerated by the government which amounts to the same thing).

    Also while Saddam Hussein was responsible for many deaths over the course of his rule (you might as well add in the toll of the Iraq-Iran war which Hussein started) he was not killing at a high rate in the years immediately before the war. I don’t think we had anything resembling an adequate reason to go to war.

    Perhaps in a few years the government will suppress the insurgents using brutal Hussein type methods but the result will not be much different from Hussein’s rule. No grand “transformation” of the country to anything we would recognize as a democracy is going to occur. I would stop throwing away American lives and money on fantastic dreams and get out now.

    Finally it is confusing that the article says most of the victims in the Baghdad morgue had been shot but then suggests bombings account for most of the terror victims.

    James B. Shearer (0eee4f)

  37. Thank you, Brad, Comment #35: The blistered, shriveled corpses of Iranian teenagers. He just wanted a miserable oil-rich island. Fourteen-year old boys reaching forward to grab a weapon and being chemically burnt to death. … .

    nk (956ea1)

  38. nk, well to be fair I think the deaths of the 14 year old Iranian boys sent against the Iraqi lines carrying nothing but Korans are the responsibility of the Iranian government even though Hussein started the war.

    James B. Shearer (0eee4f)

  39. Nosh, I agree with you. All of these people on this website who support the war or the troops, but who aren’t serving on the front lines are nothing but contemptible chicken hawks. Every last cowardly one of them.

    That is why I am so pleased to see people like you boldly speaking the truth to power against those like Patterico and his ilk.

    We in the progressive,reality based community are cut from a higher grade of cloth. We have the courage of our convictions. Chickenhawks like Patterico support the war and troops, but are unwilling to risk there precious hides. But people like me and you, Nosh, we are different. We are willing to put our money where our mouths are. We don’t hide behind cheap, empty words like “Patriotism” or “God bless America.” We know that the cause of peace in Iraq is worth more than just words. It is something worth putting our lives on the line for. That is why people like me and you Nosh, we are willing to do something about it.

    I have noticed that many armed groups in Iraq have targeted places like schools, Mosques, voting booths, and police recruiting stations. I propose that we form a group of human shields to protect these places. Just think of it Nosh! If we are willing to place ourselves as human shields in these places, perhaps these Iraqi insurgents would think twice before they attacked a school bus full of children. Nosh, just think of it! We could help to stop the killings and the suffering! Let Patterico and his kind scoff.

    The beauty of this human shield concept is that you don’t have to worry about being too old. Patterico is probably floundering about right now, trying to come up with some cheap excuse about why he can’t join the Army, like his age, or position as a blogger, or his halitosis. Feh. I believe it not. But you Nosh, I don’t care how old or enfeebled you are, or what gender or genders you have. Everyone can be a human shield. I myself am a lactose intolerant, transgendered hermaprodite named Shirely with a tendancy towards flatulance (controlled with regular helpings of Beano) and I get arround quite well with my new electric powered rascal.

    Come join me Nosh, as we usher in a brave new world of peace and understanding. With our courage, we shall place our bodies between the Iraqi civillians and the bombs and shrapnel that al Qaeda uses! We shall overcome!

    Progressive Thinker (bace01)

  40. Progressive Thinker: You go, er, girl (or whatever).

    The data cited in the LAT article undoubtedly includes terrorist deaths among the civilian deaths. The data comes from the Iraqi Body Count, whose methodology is simple and simply flawed — pull from the list of approved sources* and identifies from each incident the “maximum” and “minimum” number of civilian deaths.

    In order to report any civilian deaths, at least two of the approved sources must report the deaths, and the maximum is also listed as the minumum, unless at least two approved sources report a lower number. IBC says “as a further conservative measure, when the wording used in both reports refers to “people” instead of civilians, we will include the total figure as a maximum but enter “0” into the minimum column unless details are present clearly identifying some or all of the dead as civilian – in this case the number of identifiable civilians will be entered into the minimum column instead of 0.” To determine whether such details are present, IBC relies on their approved sources. For any reported incident, if at least two of those sources include the murderers among the victims when doing the body count, then the minimum count as well as the maximum will be overinclusive.

    IBC’s data table as of this writing bears the following description: “Reported civilian deaths resulting from the US-led military intervention in Iraq as of Friday, 16th June 2006,” but that statement isn’t supported by the data, unless one accepts the proposition that surrender to the terrorists in Iraq would bring about an end to the carnage, rather than permit still greater numbers of deaths (a bloodbath would be the result of premature withdrawal, of course, but this too would be blamed on the US).

    And the date — June 16, eh? They’re a little behind. Somehow, I won’t be surprised if at least some members of Zarqawi’s dinner party are included among the IBC’s tally, once their “fact-checkers” have had an opportunity to validate the reports.

    There is an anti-war argument worth considering — but it’s not a liberal one. It’s a conservative one that acknowledges the good that will result from the liberation of Iraq, but says that the likelihood of success is low, and the cost and risk just isn’t worth it. The conservative anti-war argument isn’t dishonest, but it fails to present anything resembling a viable alternative. And the facts aren’t supporting the conservative anti-war argument; the progress made to date suggests to any objective observer that the Iraqi liberation will not fail unless the US gives up.

    IBC’s line is that the US is the cause of the carnage in Iraq, rather than the provider and guardian of Iraq’s opportunity to have democratic self-government.

    IBC and the rest of the so-called “liberal” opposition should be identified as what they are: they’re not liberals, unless the meaning of the word has been perverted to mean pro-totalitarianism, and they’re not anti-war; they’re pro-war, just on the other side.

    *For many of these sources, inclusion among the “approved” seem to be approved based on ideology, not news-gathering capability. The list includes some with such capability, such as Al Jazeera (whether you agree with their point of view, ignoring them wouldn’t be justified), but also includes some who do not have any such capability, but are merely secondary sources of information of dubious origin, such as Commondreams.org, whose digital masthead proclaims that it offers “news and views for the progressive community.” Curiously, it includes both the LAT and its East Coast outlet, the Baltimore Sun, which has no international newsgathering resources of its own but relies entirely on LAT-content for its international coverage. The NYTimes is on the list — unmatched news gathering capability coupled with a doubt-inspiring ideological slant. Also included are proven opponents of the effort to give the Iraqi people their sovereignty — the International Red Cross and Human Rights Watch, who can be counted on to consider terrorist deaths as the moral equivalent of civilian deaths. It does throw in a few reputable sources, such as the Washington Post.

    TNugent (6128b4)

  41. Patterico,

    Your numbers are way off. My understandingis the 300,000 to 400,000 figure is those killed BY SADDAM. I could be wrong, but I believe that it excludes the (Hundreds of thousands?) of Iraqis killed during the two major wars started by Saddam: the Iran-Iraq war (complete with chemical weapons!) and the first Gulf war.

    Given that the current situation is obviously a war, even if a civil one, the deaths from those previous conflicts should also be included in the comparison.

    This, of course, makes that LA Times story even more biased and absurd.

    Frank Jones (9ce732)

  42. […] Some could argue that these deaths are attibutable to the invasion — but that argument incorrectly assumes that civilians weren’t murdered in equal numbers under Saddam. As I showed in this post, they were. Saddam murdered, on average, over 16,000 civilians per year — about the same number as have died during the course of the war, primarily at the hands of the same Ba’athist terrorists who murdered civilians during Saddam’s reign. […]

    Patterico’s Pontifications » Memo to Joel Stein: Making Up Facts Is Not OK — Even for a “Humor” Writer (421107)


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