David Edwards and David Cromwell have a new piece in The First Post on the media’s reporting of the new Iraq mortality study. I didn’t think the coverage was quite as bad as they do. But that’s probably because I expect so little from today’s media, I’m amazed the study was mentioned at all!
Add comment October 24th, 2006
For those following the saga of the American Psychological Association and efforts to change its support for psychologists’ participation in interrogations at guantanamo and elswhere, here is the next chapter. Neil Altman, a member of the APA Council from the Division of Psychoanalysis, has submitted the following resolution to call a moratorium to psychologists’ participation in these interrogations:
1. Title of the Resolution: A moratorium on psychologist involvement in interrogations at US detention centers for foreign detainees.
2. Mover: Neil Altman, Ph.D.
3. Mover’s Organizational Representation within APA: Division 39 representative to the Council of Representatives
4. The Issue: That psychologists participating in interrogations of foreign detainees at US detention centers may be working within a framework in which there is inadequate protection of detainee human rights.
5. Relation to APA Priorities: This resolution fits with the priority of promoting human welfare through social justice policy and education.
6. Estimated Costs/Staff Resources: Minimal, only as needed to publicize the resolution.
7. Main Motion: Whereas, the American Psychological Association (APA), as an accredited NGO at the UN, is committed to the spirit, purposes, and principles of the UN and other relevant UN instruments;
Whereas, in 2006, the APA Resolution Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment reaffirmed the APA’s long-standing commitment to basic human rights including its position against torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment;
Whereas, in 2006, the APA Resolution Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment affirmed that psychologists regardless of their roles, shall not knowingly engage in, tolerate, direct, support, advise, or offer training in torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; that psychologists shall not provide knowingly any research, instruments, or knowledge that facilitates the practice of torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; that psychologists shall not knowingly participate in any procedure in which torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment is used or threatened;
Whereas, in 2006, the APA Resolution Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment affirmed that should torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment evolve during a procedure where a psychologist is present, the psychologist shall attempt to intervene to stop such behavior, and failing that exit the procedure; and that psychologists shall be alert to acts of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment and have an ethical responsibility to report these acts to the appropriate authorities;.
Whereas, the US government in the Military Commissions Bill of 2006 has declared that certain people held at detention centers are “enemy combatants” and as such may not be guaranteed human rights protections, particularly in relation to due process, and humane interrogation techniques, as established under the Geneva Conventions and other UN documents, treaties, conventions, and protocols that protect the human rights of people without exception.
Whereas, current interrogation methods at U.S. centers holding “enemy combatants” may include techniques defined as torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment under the 2006 APA Resolution Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment;
Whereas, psychologists working in U.S. detention centers for foreign detainees are placed at risk (ethically and psychologically), particularly in relation to involvement in interrogations interpreted as legal under U.S. law but inclusive of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment as defined under international law and the 2006 APA Resolution Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment;
Therefore, Be it resolved that APA adopts this resolution calling for a moratorium on all psychologist involvement, either direct or indirect, in any interrogations at U.S. detention centers for foreign detainees. This moratorium is necessary as detainees may be currently denied protections outlined under the Geneva Conventions and interrogations techniques in violation of the 2006 APA Resolution Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment may be considered acceptable practice according to the Military Commissions Bill of 2006;
And Be it Further Resolved that APA disseminates and publicizes this resolution along with its 2006 Resolution against Torture both within the Association and to the wider public.
7. Expected Outcomes/Products: Improved ethical and legal guidance for psychologists working in US detention centers holding foreign detainees.
8. Co-sponsors: Joseph Aponte, Kentucky; Bernice Lott, Div. 9; Allen Omoto, Div. 9; Dolores Morris, Div. 39; Judith Van Hoorn, Div. 48; Laura Barbanel, Div. 39; G. Rita Dudley-Grant, Div. 42; Laurie Wagner, Div. 39; Maurine Kelly, Div. 39; Sharon Brennan, New York; Jacquelyn White, Div. 35; Jean Lau Chin, Div. 35; Linda M. Woolf, Div. 48; Barbara Cowan, New York; Trish Crawford, British Columbia, Bert Karon, Div. 39.
A draft version of the acompanying Justification Statement is available here [pdf].
Given the position of the APA leadership, it will take a massive effort to get this adopted.
1 comment October 24th, 2006
Because they are based on media reports, it is clear that Iraq Body Count’s reports of numbers of Iraqi civilians dead from violence are clearly an undercount. IBC points this out in occaisional asides. Nonetheless, the media have routinely reported (until very recently) IBC’s numbers as if they were the actual number killed in Iraq, rather than the number reported in the Western press. IBC usually claims they have no idea what the real number is and says “we don’t do estimates,” despite sometimes estimating that they believe they capture around 50% of the deaths.
Further, IBC has repeatdly claimed to be too busy to make any effort to correct these media distortions of their numbers. Nor could they be bothered to protest when the British Government incorectly cites their figures as “the” number of civilian dead in Iraq. They stand mute when President Bush cited a figure apparently coming from their estimates.
But, when higher estimates [of 600,000 dead] are published by some of the top epidemiologists in the area of mortality estimation in conflict situations, IBC sees red. There appears to be no limit to the time they will spend casting aspersions on the epidemiologists and their work. Not only do they publish an extensive Press Release that argues that the new estimates are likely wrong beacuse, well, because they are higher than IBC’s figures. [Yes, I', exagerating, but not by that much. They also argue that Iraq, torn as it is by civil war, must have government data systems accurately reporting deaths and injuries.] I hope to write more on the IBC critique in the future.
Now, I am not totally convinced by the new Lancet-published Iraq mortality study. But I think it is quality work requiring careful consideration, not hatchet jobs. And I think it, like all scientific studies, is not imune from examination and critique. But I do find it disturbing that IBC, which can’t be bothered to take any action regarding obviously false reports of its numbers, is obsessed to undermine an apparently credible study. Today brings further evidence that IBC has plenty of time to act on false reports, if only they saw the point. They are sending around to defenders of the Lancet mortality study another letter attacking the study and, implicitly, its defenders.
Here is the IBC letter:
Dear Professor [Name Withheld]
We note that you are a signatory to the article in “The Age” citing the recent Lancet estimate of 655,000 dead as “the best estimate of mortality to date in Iraq that we have, or indeed are ever likely to have.”
Are you aware of the much larger and more precise UNDP-funded survey which found a significantly lower number of war-related violent deaths in an overlapping period than is implicit in the present Lancet-published estimate? http://www.iq.undp.org/ILCS/overview.htm) If so, why have you disregarded its findings in favour of Lancet?
You go on to say “We urge open and constructive debate, rather than ill-informed criticism of the methods or results of sound science.” We welcome your call for open and constructive debate. As you may know we have published some quite widely reported reservations about the Lancet study (PDF attached - a balanced report on this is here: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/worldopinionroundup/2006/10/ is_iraqs_civilian_death_toll_h.html ). Further queries have been raised
in a recent Science Journal article (appended below).We would be very grateful if you would let us know how, in particular, you would defend the study against these criticisms which we, and many others, believe cast serious doubt on the author’s claims that the study’s results can validly be extrapolated to provide a meaningful estimate for the whole of Iraq. We of course assume that you are fully conversant with the methods described both in the Lancet paper itself ( http://download.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/0140-6736/PIIS0140673606694919.pdf ) and the lengthier descriptions given in supporting notes published by MIT ( http://web.mit.edu/CIS/pdf/Human_Cost_of_War.pdf ).
Best Regards,
John Sloboda, FBA.
Co-founder Iraq Body Count
Director, Oxford Research Group
Professor of Psychology, Keele UniversityScience 20 October 2006:
Vol. 314. no. 5798, pp. 396 - 397
DOI: 10.1126/science.314.5798.396
News of the WeekEPIDEMIOLOGY:
Iraqi Death Estimates Called Too High; Methods Faulted
John Bohannon
A new estimate of the number of Iraqis who have died as a consequence of the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 has ignited a firestorm of its own. At 400,000 to 800,000 deaths, the new number is at least 10 times higher than estimates cited by the Iraqi government and U.S.- led coalition. U.S. President George W. Bush immediately dismissed the study, characterizing its methodology as “pretty well discredited.” Other Administration officials charged that the study, released with significant publicity 4 weeks before U.S. midterm elections, was politically motivated. Researchers who spoke with Science disagree that the authors’ motives are suspect but raise several questions about the methodology of the study, which was published 11 October in The Lancet.
Experts on both sides of the debate concede that it is notoriously difficult to get an accurate count of casualties in Iraq. The Iraqi
Ministry of Health has estimated up to 40,000 violent deaths so far, based on death certificates reported by hospitals and morgues. That figure falls within the range published by Iraqi Body Count, an independent London-based group opposed to the war that compiles casualty numbers from media reports. There is little doubt that the real number of deaths is higher than this, because only a fraction of deaths are officially recorded or reported by journalists. But just how small is that fraction?The Lancet study, designed by researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, is based on a survey conducted between May and July by a team of 10 Iraqi health workers. (The Johns Hopkins researchers met with the Iraqi team twice across the border in Jordan to advise on the survey techniques.) The team visited 47 neighborhoods in 18 different regions across the country, going door- to-door and asking families about recent deaths. They collected data from a total of 1849 households
containing 12,801 residents. For the 14 months before the invasion, the Iraqi families reported 82 deaths, an annual death rate of 5.5 per 1000 people. Within the same households, 547 people died between the start of the invasion and July of this year–an annual increase of 7.8 deaths per 1000. By applying this rate to the entire population of 27 million, the researchers conclude that
655,000 more Iraqis have died than would have if the invasion had never happened. About 8% of these extra deaths are attributed to deteriorating public health, but an estimated 601,000 are violent–56% from gunshots and about 13% each from air strikes, car bombs, and other explosions. The researchers calculate a 95% probability that the true number of violent deaths lies between 426,369 and 793,663.Many academics spoke up in defense of the study. “I too find the survey’s estimates shockingly high, … [but] the choice of method is anything but controversial,” wrote Francesco Checchi, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on 12 October on a humanitarian Web site. The statistical technique used, called cluster surveying, divides the population into different regions, neighborhoods, and households, in contrast to a random sampling of people on the streets.
The method may be sound, but several critics question the way it was carried out in this study. Madelyn Hicks, a psychiatrist and public health researcher at King’s College London in the U.K., says she “simply cannot believe” the paper’s claim that 40 consecutive houses were surveyed in a single day. “There is simply not enough time in the day,” she says, “so I have to conclude that something else is going on for at least some of these interviews.” Households may have been “prepared by someone, made ready for rapid reporting,” she says, which “raises the issue of bias being introduced.”
Lead author Gilbert Burnham, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins, counters that “40 adjacent households is entirely achievable in a day’s work if well organized.” Les Roberts, also at Hopkins, adds that 80% of the 547 deaths were corroborated with death certificates. The fact that hundreds of thousands of death certificates seem to have gone unregistered by the Ministry of Health is no surprise, says Roberts, because “those have always been grossly underreported.”
Neil Johnson and Sean Gourley, physicists at Oxford University in the U.K. who have been analyzing Iraqi casualty data for a separate study, also question whether the sample is representative. The paper indicates that the survey team avoided small back alleys for safety reasons. But this could bias the data because deaths from car bombs, street-market explosions, and shootings from vehicles should be more likely on larger streets, says Johnson. Burnham counters that such streets were included and that the methods section of the published paper is oversimplified. He also told Science that he does not know exactly how the Iraqi team conducted its survey; the details about neighborhoods surveyed were destroyed “in case they fell into the wrong hands and could increase the
risks to residents.” These explanations have infuriated the study’s critics. Michael Spagat, an economist at Royal Holloway, University of London, who specializes in civil conflicts, says the scientific community should call for an in- depth investigation into the researchers’ procedures. “It is almost a crime to let it go unchallenged,” adds Johnson.Co-author Roberts is no stranger to such controversy. He led a smaller study of Iraqi casualties, published in The Lancet in 2004, that estimated 100,000 deaths. That work was criticized for relying on too few samples. This time, he says, “we took enough samples, and if anyone wants to verify our results, it’s easy.” The study suggests that close to four times the number of deaths occurred in the first half of 2006 than in the first half of 2002, he says, “and anyone could simply pick four to six spots in Iraq and go to the local graveyards. The increase … should be obvious.”
For now, Spagat says he is sticking with casualty numbers published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). A UNDP survey of 21,668 Iraqi households put the number of postinvasion violent deaths between 18,000 and 29,000 up to mid-2004. “When a survey suggests so much higher numbers than all other sources of information,” he says, “the purveyors of this outlier must make a good-faith effort to explain why all the other information is so badly wrong.”
–John Sloboda
Executive Director
IBC now clearly sees discrediting rivals as their major activity. Correctly reporting the number of Iraqi deaths ceased mattering to them ages ago. I used to see IBC as misguided. I have long ago changed that opinion.
2 comments October 24th, 2006
October 24, 2006
Go Figure
Art Buchwald
Col. Cruncher was passing the newsstand in the Pentagon when he saw a headline: “650,000 Iraqis Have Died as a Result of the U.S. Invasion.”
He rushed back to his office. It turns out that Cruncher is in charge of body counts in Iraq, and those figures were not his. His were much lower, at the order of the defense secretary.
Cruncher’s assistant, Maj. Numbers, said, “The phone’s been ringing off the hook. They’re very upset upstairs with the news.”
Col. Cruncher said, “Well, anybody can come up with any figure. It’s actually just a poll. No one counted every dead Iraqi. They just did a sampling, and like all polls, they inflated the number to make it look good.
“The survey was printed in the Lancet, the British medical journal, and they said they could be in error between 10 and 15 percent.”
Maj. Numbers sighed, “We work so hard to be accurate when it comes to body counts. I think it was a mistake to allow someone else to do the polling.”
Cruncher asked, “Why are they so excited? We’ll give them some figures to refute Lancet.”
The major replied, “The Lancet numbers are not credible. But worse than that, the president is going to go on the air at a news conference in an hour and he has to have some numbers from us when he’s asked how many Iraqis have been killed.”
Cruncher said, “Take this memo:
” ‘The Pentagon said it would not accept the fact that 650,000 Iraqis were killed after the invasion. What was wrong with the poll was that it did not question every household in Iraq and interview relatives of those who might have been killed to bring about democracy and show what a terrible person Saddam Hussein was.
” ‘The Office of Body Counts has gone over all the figures and they just don’t make sense. Many of the people were scheduled to die anyway because of old age. Others may have been caught in friendly fire. The big error was that no one counted the people sitting on the fence.
” ‘Body counting is a very scientific business. This office was set up in the first place because of the errors in body counting in Vietnam. They were way off, and the Pentagon used those numbers to claim we were winning the war.
” ‘The Pentagon decided it would not make the same mistake again. We don’t say there won’t be any more deaths. War is war and we can’t be expected to protect the civilians who are counting on us to bring freedom.’ ”
Maj. Numbers said, “Colonel, we have to give the White House a figure that they can use in the news conference.”
The colonel said, “Let’s tell them to use 30,000 — the same figure we had three years ago.”
The major responded, “I think we have to go up some so we don’t look like we’re cooking the number of deaths.”
The colonel said, “Well, all right. Put down 60,000. It’s a very believable body-count figure. Send a copy upstairs, one to the White House and one to Bob Woodward. Tell the staff, 60,000 and not one Iraqi more.”
The major agreed.
“For the title of our report, let’s quote the defense secretary: ‘Stuff Happens.’ ”
Add comment October 24th, 2006
Let’s hope they’re only the first:
Active-Duty Troops Launch Campaign to Press Congress to End U.S. Occupation of Iraq
65 Members to Send “Appeals for Redress” Under the Military Whistle-blower Protection Act
10/23/2006 9:58:00 AM
To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor
Contact: Trevor Fitzgibbon, 202-246-5303, or Alex Howe, or Laura Gross, 202-822-5200, for Fenton Communications
News Advisory:For the first time since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, active- duty members of the military are asking Members of Congress to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq and bring American soldiers home.
Sixty-five active-duty members have sent Appeals for Redress to Members of Congress. Three of these people (including two who served in Iraq) and their attorney will speak about this on Wednesday, Oct. 25 at 11 a.m. EDT.
Under the Military Whistle-Blower Protection Act (DOD directive 7050.6), active-duty military, National Guard and Reservists can file and send a protected communication to a Member of Congress regarding any subject without reprisal.
What: Three active-duty members of the military and their lawyer, a retired U.S. Marine Corps JAG, make comments and take questions from the media.
When: Wednesday, Oct. 25, 11 a.m. EDTConference Call Details: 800-362-0574, Conference ID: “Active Duty”
Add comment October 24th, 2006
Inveitably: Governments say they follow U.S. on jail treatment.
Some countries try to refute criticism over their treatment of prisoners by saying they are only following the U.S. example on handling terror suspects, a U.N. human rights expert said on Monday.
Manfred Nowak, the U.N. investigator on torture, told a news conference that “all too frequently” governments respond to criticism about their jails by saying they handled detainees the same way the United States did.
“The United States has been the pioneer of human rights and is a country that has a high reputation in the world,” Nowak said. “Today, other governments are kind of saying, ‘But why are you criticizing us, we are not doing something different than what the United States is doing.’”
He said nations like Jordan tell him, “We are collaborating with the United States so it can’t be wrong if it is also done by the United States.”
Add comment October 24th, 2006
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