The Truth About Civilian Deaths

You may have heard the latest total popycock to come out of a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study, claiming to show that 655,000 Iraqi civilians have died violent deaths in the last three years. That's a rate of 500 every day. To date, according to icasualties.org, the U.S. Armed Forces have lost 2,753 soldiers, including those who died in accidents. If you really want to believe that 300 Iraqis are dying for every one of our troops, please avoid all offers of real estate sales in Florida. Cancel that last sentence: if you believe the 655,000 number, please call me and I'll sell you some prime real estate in Florida with beach access and swimming pools nearby. The study has a margin of error ranging from 400,000 to 800,000, so they split the difference to come up with this answer.
Of course, it is critical that you get the other side of the story, so to view the Johns Hopkins study, go to http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/11/iraq.deaths/index.html At that site, you can see a story on the study and a link can open the study in pdf format. The story admits that the survey did not ask the people whether their dead relatives were insurgents. CNN, in its highly incurious manner, is reporting this junk as unbiased news and is witholding the margin of error from your view.
As you might recall, another survey came out from the same source, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health about two years ago, right after the Battle for Fallujah. This study claimed that 100,000 civilians had been killed since the invasion. Curiously, like the Johns Hopkins Survey, that study also had a mammoth margin of error - 30,000-170,000 - so they split the difference and came up with 100,000. How did that study arrive at its conclusion? They conducted surveys of three areas and TWO OF THE THREE AREAS WERE DIFFERENT PARTS OF FALLUJAH! Richard Miniter thoroughly debunks the 100,000 figure in his latest book Disinformation.
Like the 100,000 survey, this study was a household survey, based on interviews with fewer than 2,000 families and intended to include insurgents and terrorists and victims of crime as deaths ascribed to Coalition forces. I have lived with these people. They do not tell the truth as we understand "truth." I have been thoroughly exasperated with their communication style. If you ask an Iraqi a question expecting a "yes" answer, he will say, "yes," no matter what. He will not say "no," under any circumstances. If you are seeking information, he will give you information. It may be faulty, untrue, or made up on the spot, but he will give you the answers you are seeking. An Iraqi will never say, "I don't know." This study is ridiculous and barely deserves to be dignified with a response.