Keith Dancey wrote:

> You are deliberately trying to mislead again.
>
> From the report:
>
>
>     BRIEFING NOTE, 01/11/04
>
>     THE LANCET IRAQ MORTALITY SURVEY: THE UK GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSE IS
>     INACCURATE AND MISLEADING
>
>     On Friday 29th October 2004, the Lancet medical journal published a st
udy
>     of post-war mortality in Iraq which estimated that at least 100,000 ex
cess
>     civilian deaths had occurred since the 2003 invasion; that most were c
aused
>     by violence; and that most of those violent deaths were caused by coal
ition
>     air strikes.
>
>
> Note "at least 100,000 excess CIVILIAN deaths" and "most of those violent 
deaths
> were caused by coalition air strikes"
>
> Is that clear enough, even for you?   How do those statements conflict
> with my sig?

Who's trying to mislead?  How is it from the report if it is a briefing
note that refers to the report and the government's reponse to the
report?  You don't give the source.  Google shows it's a paper written by:
Michael Lewis
Christ's College
Cambridge CB2 3BU
United Kingdom
and widely distributed by: Cambridge Solidarity with Iraq (CASI)

You simply provide someone else's subjective interprettation of the
report that agrees with yours.

The author, Dr. Les Roberts , obfuscates the findings himself.  In a
friendly interview you can read at
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/ar...article_id=6271 at one
point he says... "Most of the people killed by the coalition were women
and children, which implies the use of a lot of force, and perhaps too
much."

But later when asked...

"How would you summarise your main findings?

The bottom line is that by any measure the death rate after the
invasion was far higher than the death rate before.

Most of the deaths were violent and most of those deaths were caused by
the coalition forces. There is little doubt that these “excess deaths”
are as a result of the invasion and not some new flu epidemic or
something else."

The same wording as the "Interpretation" statement in the paper.  A
statement of the obvious: Invasions tend to raise the death rate of the
general population dramatically.

One final point if I may.  Using civilian deaths as a political tool,
regardless of the real numbers, only invites more civilian deaths at
the hands of the "insurgents".  If they believed there was a target
number of civilian deaths that would tip the west against the war
politically they would acheive that target ASAP.  It would be
irresponsible for coalition leadership to publically
address/discuss/debate civilian death counts while the insurgency is
ongoing.

-- ced



--
Chuck Dillon
Senior Software Engineer
NimbleGen Systems Inc.

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