Ted
The fact is that experts in this field back the methodology used to calculate the number of deaths in Iraq as published by Lancet. The number of deaths in other wars or other places have no bearing on that fact.
Also irrelvant to this argument is a disputed argument about measles.

The Lancet has a well deserved reputation over many years for being able to back up what it has published. You also have a well deserved reputation but at the opposite end of the plausabilty spectrum.

Stuff the sheik, lets deport Benjamin, to Iraq, so he can go about and convince everyone in that country how much they 'owe' us. moron.

Steve Madden
"In your last post you mentioned the UK deaths in the second world war...... Note the UK was never invaded."

Was the bombing of London, Coventry, Leeds, Glasgow not an invasion? Can you expect us to take you seriously after that?

rossco
"Also irrelvant to this argument is a disputed argument about measles."

It is relevent. If one article by Lancet can be questioned then the credibility of other articles can equally be questioned.

And to others.
Why don't you take any account of the huge death rate caused by Saddam?

For further information about casualities in Iraq:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_conflict_in_Iraq_since_2003

This article should be a discussion about sampling techniques.

The Iraq Body Count requires information about specific reported incidents. From this measure at least 45,000 people have died as a result of the war.

In a society which has been fractured by many years of dictatorship and war, a very large number of people will have died unreported. The sampling method attempts to estimate the total number of deaths, including the unreported number. This number will include violent death through criminal activity and must be compared against death rates prior to the invasion.

The arguments presented in this article provide no reason to doubt the validity of this estimate within the margin of error. It is an entirely plausable number.

It would be reasonable to check that the researchers applied the methodology correctly, however if we are to accept the scientific method, the result can and should be confirmed by a separate research team using a similar technique. That is how science works.

I find the estimate of deaths due to the intervention to be way beyond my credibility. To overcome this disbelief I really need sound proof. I understand that the estimate is based upon the multiplication of results from a smallish sample to an entire population. The statistics of multiplication may be very sound, but how good was the quality of information gathered from the sample? "Garbage in, garbage out times ten" I would really need absolute assurance that the quality of information gathered from the sample was absolutely correct, how did the respondents to the survey distinguish between deaths due to the intervention and all other deaths? In Australia I suppose about 200,000 people (a calculated guess) die each year, and thus 600,000 every three years or so. To what extent is this mortality due to the war in Iraq?

"Why don't you take any account of the huge death rate caused by Saddam? " wrote 'logic'.

How about cos our taxes didn't fund Saddam, our PM didn't kiss his arse and our shores didn't shelter his exterminators, unlike the present situation where our taxes and 'our boys' support for the biggest pack of war criminals currently at large on the planet.
That the Australian Wheat Board DID fund Saddam, and the US DID supply the poison gas Saddam used, they're just tiresome details to RightThink revisionists like 'logic'.

So long as we kill less than poster 'logic' claims Saddam did, we're good guys?

That such drivel is routinely peddled shows how farcical public debate and hence democracy are in this deluded continent. Its obvious what the yanks are getting out of this 'war without end' (for declining resources), but why are we still bending over to yankee dominance? Sheer cowardice is the most common explanation i've heard.