Template talk:Summary of casualties of the Iraq War

with roughly three times as many injured

I don't see support for the "with roughly three times as many injured." in the Lancet study.--Silverback 17:20, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Hm. I thought it did. I'll review. As they say, "DEVELOPING. . ." – Quadell ^(talk) 17:52, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Looks like you're right, Silverback. My mistake. Don't know where the "three times" estimate came from, but if it didn't come from the Lancet study, it can't be better than a guess. – Quadell ^(talk) 21:06, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it was a rule of thumb suggested by the body count site. If, so it might be appropropriate to one of the other figures. If it were a good rule of thumb, it would have been interesting if the Lancet study actually tried to assess injuries, as a sanity check on their mortality figures. After all, the injured and wounded should still be around and easily verifiable, even if they had healed.--Silverback 06:07, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

why was the lancet study removed? removing that was rather POV...

Let me quote from Lancet survey of mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq:

To date, this is has been the only serious scientific attempt to estimate the excess mortality as a result of the invasion.

If that sentence is false, misleading or POV, the please discuss it on the talk page for Lancet survey of mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Just because gwbush's speechmakers pretend not to understand the difference between iraqbodycount - which only estimates deaths for which e.g. at least 2 or 3 different "reputable" newspapers give consistent reports and sufficient identifying details (place, name, ...), it does not claim to estimate the total, many civilians are certainly killed without ending up with their names in a newspaper - and the Lancet study - which does attempt to estimate the total, but gives a conservative lower limit, is no reason for wikipedians to make the same error. Boud 18:39, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

injured/wounded/dead

The DOD does NOT count soldiers who were injured in non-hostile incidents among the wounded. They DO count soldiers who die of wounds/injuries among the dead. That's why so many soldiers are listed as dying in the US or Germany. They died of wounds after being evacuated. See www.icasualties.org for more info.

Czolgolz 14:40, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm reverting the commentary in the template. The US DOES report ALL Iraq fatalities, whether they happen in Iraq, Germany, or the US. They just reported the death of a US soldier in Louisville, Kentucky, from wounds received in September, 2005.

Czolgolz 12:42, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Australian deaths

Someone keeps putting the one australian death in the chart (actually, there've been two). If we do that, we'll need to list every country who's lost a soldier (Slovakia, for instance, has lost three). Should we do that, or still classify countries that have lost less than ten soldiers under 'other'?

Lancet Study Misquoted

The upper limit of civilian deaths is quoted as 100,000 from the Lancet study. The lancet study did not measure civilian deaths however, it measured all deaths (milirtary and civilian), using a comparison of death rates prior to invasion and post invasion[1][2]. Iraq body count reviewed the publicly available sources of casulties and classed them by the types of casualties they included[3]. According to the IBC report only IBC and the Iraqi ministry of health have excluded military casualties. Mrdthree 13:57, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

According to the IBC report only IBC and the Iraqi ministry of health have excluded military casualties. IBC claims that the Lancet tudy is also inaccurate and that a better study is the ILCS/IMIRA [4]. Ignoring the fact that both IMRA/ILCS[5] also includes military deaths, IBC says the most it is underestimating civilian deaths by is 61%.[6]. So, when appropriately compared to ILCS, the worst one could say of IBC is that its count could be low by a factor of two, a far cry from factors of "five or ten" [7]. Using this calculus the current lower and upper bonds are from 37813 to ~85000 [8]. Mrdthree 14:14, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I changed the 'Iraqi Civilians' quote to 'Iraqi casualties'-- if the Lancet study is to be used.Mrdthree 14:21, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I changed it to "Iraqi Deaths" because "casualties" can include injuries. It's talking about deaths, not injuries. So that makes it crystal clear.

Also, the Lancet authors do claim that their survey technique will most likely have missed deaths in Saddam's military during the invasion. Though it did not attempt to exclude post invasion Iraqi military forces or "insurgents" or other combatants or fighters. So some might complain about using the term "military" when talking about what Lancet covered besides civilians. You may want to consider using a less specific term like combatant or fighter or something.

Italian deaths

On the CNN, it is said there are only 30 italian deaths so I lowered it from 31 accordingly. --Cat out 11:21, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Non coalition civilian deaths

Do we really need to list them all individually? It's kind of making the template look crowded and I'm not sure anyone is updating it. Czolgolz 17:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Creating new estimates

BD2412 asks: "are you asserting that no one died in Iraq after the Lancet report was published? Or since Bush estimate 30,000 dead? Those deaths are very well documented."

No, of course not. But it was clearly stated when those figures were given, which obviously means they can not include deaths past Dec 2005 (Bush) and Sep 2004 (Lancet). I don't believe we should be creating new estimates in this way, by selectively combining certain sources with certain others. These would be selective choices made by you, not by any cited source. And for example, you selectively add 2006 figures from UN to the Bush figure, but why? The UN gives a figure of 50,000 for the whole time-frame. Why are we adding a portion of one to the other to make this new 'frankenstein' estimate which can't be directly cited to anyone but you and these combination choices you made?

Likewise, why are we adding post-Sep-2004 MSNBC figures to Lancet instead of just giving the MSNBC's figure? Or, why aren't we adding MSNBC figures on top of the UNDP study from May 2004 instead of adding them to Lancet from Sep 2004? These are all arbitrary choices made by you. Citing a source and a specific figure with a specific time frame has its own value.

If you wanted to add info from something like the UN report, I think it would be more appropriate to add it after the citable figures from the others, rather than conflating them. Something like this might be appropriate:

30,000-100,000 (The lower figure was given by G. W. Bush in a public speech on December 12, 2005; the higher one comes from the September 2004 Lancet study Lancet survey of mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.) In July 2006, The United Nations has reported that at least 14,000 deaths occurred in the first half of 2006.

If we presume that the 30,000-100,000 number is correct as of September 2004 (which we seem to be doing), it would be folly not to add to that number the very well documented body count from September 2004 through today. It is not conflating the figures at all to say that the U.N. has reported 14,000 dead from January through June of 2006, and the U.S. and Iraqi governments have reported another thousand dead during July of 2006, therefore the actual range must be at least 45,000 dead as of today. Newsweek's figure of 45,017 Iraqi civilians dead as of July 10, 2006 bears this out, so it would be a folly to pretend that there are fewer than 45,000 Iraqi civilian deaths just because the estimates are cobbled together from different sources reporting over different time-frames. But if you want to go with a single source, we can go with Newsweek's number of 45,017 (although even that now leaves out the few hundred, maybe a thousand killed over the past three weeks). bd2412 T 19:44, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The 30,000-100,000 is two different sources, given at different time periods. And the presumption of their "correctness" is debatable, and I don't presume it. You have to give the figure and the source given in order to be able to evaluate the sources and their limitations in order to have that debate. The page gives the sources and the citations, and if people want to evaluate their "correctness" they follow the citations and evaluate them on their merits. By your methods of conflating different sources, the only way to evaluate their "correctness" is to go back and disaggregate all the sources you're conflating, and evaluate each on their merits and methods separately, to see which part of your conflated estimate may be right or wrong or have which limitation when..etc.

Up until now, the Iraqi deaths category in this box has been giving snapshot estimates with a clearly delineated time frame, for example Lancet up to Sep. 2004. It is stated that this does not cover the whole period. What you're doing now is trying to have a running tally, but studies like the Lancet can't and don't do that. They only give a snapshot of the period they covered. Same with Bush. In order for you to do this you have to continually update the totals, but your sources can not provide updates. You were just trying to add to them selectively from parts of certain other sources. But that doesn't make sense because then you're discarding the other parts of those sources you're using for the updates. IOW, you're just creating your own estimates on the wiki page, by piecing together certain parts of things, and without any clear methodology as to why one source was chosen over another for which part, or why everyone should accept your choices for creating these frankenstein estimates.

The only source that does updates like this is Iraq Body Count. And your link for Newsweek is nothing but a re-packaging of the IBC data (See sources on the Newsweek page). However for some reason the Newsweek figure is slightly higher than the IBC figure, and I can't see the reason why explained anywhere. It may be a mistake. All their methods say is that they are posting the IBC figures.

If you want constant updates you basically have IBC and that's it. Otherwise you need to give snapshot estimates from various sources for particular time periods, like before. 68.45.226.214 21:06, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

If we don't update, our information is out of date, therefore incorrect, period.

That is nonsense. If the correct date is given for the period covered by the source, then the information is correct, period.

The page represents the number to be a record of deaths for the entire war.

No, that's what you'd like it to represent, but it never has in the case of Iraqi deaths. It has said exactly the opposite, that it was presenting some differing death estimates that have been published for a specific time period. It had done that for two years. Now all of a sudden you want the page to be a place where you can make up figures that you like for the entire war, when you don't have any source for the figures you're creating. And you're claiming "the page" itself demands this. And that to not do this is to "pretend nobody died" and so forth. That's all nonsense. You want it, and since you don't have a clear source to cite for it, you want to place yourself in charge of making up your own figures. The figure you produce will exist nowhere except on wikipedia, and despite your assurances otherwise will involve lots of editorial choices. There's nothing inherent in the existence of the page which suggests you should do that, and concerns of credibility suggest you should not do that. An encyclopedia would not do that.68.45.226.214 19:48, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

The whole point of having a wiki is to be able to make articles more accurate on the fly.

But you can't just make up estimates of total casualties "on the fly" by piecing together different studies that use all different methods and with different limitations. It's not credible, it requires arbitrary choices and it's confusing.

Now, in terms of the low estimate, the Newsweek numbers match up with the Bush estimate for time period X combined with the U.N. estimate for time period Y, and individual DOD and Iraqi gov't reports for period Z, so if each number is independantly reliable, they add up to a reliable whole number.

Then if you want a current estimate why cite Bush? And why cite Newseek, because they're only repackaging Iraq Body Count?

No, they may each be measuring different things, and by different methods, which each may have different limitations, which was the case with your Lancet/UN frankenstein. And we don't know that each number is independently reliable. That's for people to decide. And some estimates are more certain than others. Different sources use different methods and have different strengths and weaknesses. And people need to be able to evaluate the individual sources to determine how reliable a particular figure is.

Please do not cut my sentences in half and address the partial sentence as though this were a complete thought. I have restored the whole sentence and clarified that it is, in fact, a whole sentence.

As for the high estimate, the point of a high estimate is to determine what the highest number of war-related deaths could possibly be, as if we are saying, "it can't be more than X". In this case, X could be pretty high. We're not saying, for example, that 350,000 people have died, but that the number of deaths is definitely not higher than 350,000.

You might as well pull a number of a hat. And I don't believe the table is saying that. It's trying to give credible estimates. It just happens that there are differing estimates, and it listed two of them. That doesn't mean it should just list whatever highest or lowest possible figure can be cobbled together by wiki editors. It would be entirely unclear that what you're "saying" is that neither of these figures is likely true, but rather lies at the outer edges of credibility (at your proposed higher end, I think far beyond the edges of credibility).

According to the outlier number from the Lancet study, the number of Iraqi deaths as of Sept. 2004 was almost certainly not more than 298,000.

Not true. A confidence interval for the Falluja-based estimate would extend hundreds of thousands above and below 298,000. There is nothing "certain" about any particular figure in it. I'm not sure of the exact boundaries of a CI for that because none was ever published, because the estimate was never published. And it was not published for a reason. And other studies (such as UNDP) completely contradict it.

From that base, we have to figure out the next step, to be able to say "the number of Iraqi deaths from Sept. 2004 to August 2006 is certainly not more than Q", which we will then add to 298,000 to say that the total number of Iraqi deaths since the start of the war is "certainly not more than R". So what is Q? Newsweek says about 24,000 from Sept. 31, 2004 to July 10, 2006, and there have been maybe a thousand Iraqi deaths in the past three weeks. Well, we can't really say "there can certainly not have been more than 323,000 deaths", because it's possible that there have been a few thousand more over the last two years that went unreported, but knowing that the 298,000 is already a stretch, we can still with a straight face say that the highest possible number of deaths is in the realm of 323,000. bd2412 T 21:38, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

That is all nonsense. Newsweek is just using IBC. When the "298,000" estimate was (not) published, IBC was around 15,000-20,000. So your "highest" estimate up to Sep 2004 was about *20 times* the (Newsweek equivalent) IBC. So this "logic" would suggest the Newsweek 24,000 since then could really be 480,000 (24,000 X 20)! So why not just say 800,000 is the "highest possible" figure and call it a day?

You're just making up these estimates of deaths "on the fly" and they have no credibility and are arbitrarily conflated and confusing. Unlike with the coalition deaths, which are all thoroughly accounted for and updated daily, Iraqi deaths simply don't have this kind of specificity, except for in the case of reported deaths from IBC (which is what Newsweek is using). You simply do not have a constantly updated range of "highest possible/lowest possible" figures for these deaths. You have updated figures of reported deaths from IBC, and you have snapshots of specific time periods from various (often differing) estimates.

You have limited knowledge, and faithfully presenting the limited knowledge that you do have is much more "correct" than throwing together frankenstein estimates "on the fly" based on your arbitrary interpretations and trying to pretend you have constantly updating "highest and lowest possible" figures. You just don't. 68.45.226.214 02:28, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

We will never know exactly how many people have died in Iraq. All we'll ever know for sure is that, as of August 3, 2006, it was something over 45,000 Iraqis, and that we know because someone has bothered to tally those who were known to be dead. If the U.S. military reports tomorrow that another fifty people were killed in a market bombing, we can do one of two things. We can pretend those deaths didn't happen and do nothing, or we can add fifty to both ends of the range to reflect reality. Yes, the high estimates are arbitrarily conflated, as they always are in war, because they do not represent what we know, but rather the reasonable upper limit of what we don't know. Is it possible that 800,000 people have died in this war? Well, it's not within the realm of anything that has been reported. But there are upper limit numbers that have been reported for different time periods. Whatever upper limit we agree today is a reasonable estimation, if fifty people are killed tomorrow, that number must go up by fifty because at least we know that those fifty were killed. bd2412 T 03:02, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Yours is a false dichotomy. The lower end (like IBC - in turn MSNBC - maybe UN) figures will increase with reported deaths today and tomorrow because they're based on compiling reports of deaths. I don't think it's appropriate for "we" (ie: you) to determine which is a "reasonable estimation" and then add in other stuff of your choosing to create your own new estimates. There are a couple of differing snap-shot estimates which covered only a particular period and they should be presented as they were published, cited to those sources, and with the appropriate time frame given for what they actually did cover. Then readers may decide what is a "reasonable estimation", and what should or should not be assumed on top of them beyond their time frame. I thought wiki was supposed to be an encyclopedia. The editors of encyclopedias don't make up their own estimates for wars based on what snippets of data from various sources they feel are "reasonable" to conflate. They cite various sources who have produced estimates and faithfully list what they said.68.45.226.214 03:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Right now we are reporting an upper estimate of 100,000 deaths that is two years old. That figure may have been a high guess for the people who were making it, but they were scientists making an educated and informed guess based on the best information available. However, if the estimate of 100,000 was a fair upper estimate nearly two years ago, it makes no sense to pretend that no additional deaths have occurred since that time, particularly when we see it reported by our own government in the news every day, and have estimates from other reliable sources such as the United Nations. Do you truly believe that all of these sources having arrived at similar figures are wrong, and that no Iraqis died in all of 2005 and all of 2006? bd2412 T 03:57, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Nobody is "pretending" deaths didn't happen in 2006, or in 2005. That claim is absurd. The correct timeline for the previous figures was given, and both indicated that they did not include 2006, and one (Lancet) indicated that it did not include 2005 or 2006. Your assumption first of all that "we" should be giving what "we" believe is the true figure up to today is dubious and non-encyclopedic, and requires that subjective new estimates be concocted by wiki editors. Your further assertion that the table is or should be giving a total range of plausible estimates up to today from lowest to highest is also arguable. The table, imv, was giving two notable estimates from two prominent sources, and citing the appropriate time frame for those sources. I think they were cited for their prominence and notability, not because they were the "lowest" and "highest" possible figures. The Lancet one has been out of date for two years, but everybody knows this. It's clearly stated in the table. Anything source you use will become out of date (except for your Newsweek thing because it's just repeating IBC, which constantly updates)

But now that you've removed the Bush thing the footnotes are all screwy, because the Bush quote is gone, but the footnote for it is still there. And this gets to another point. Giving these figures as they were given by their source is important because they are notable landmarks, and in the case of Bush, that was notable due to it being Bush giving the figure.

My own view is that the Bush thing should remain (cited as coming from Dec 2005) because it's a notable landmark, and the Lancet 100,000 should remain (cited as coming from Sep 2004), and if need be, a third source should be cited for your 15,000 in 2006. But that will eventually be out of date too. There's nothing wrong and no "pretending" involved by giving notable landmark figures for specific indicated time-frames. I think that's actually a better way to run a table like this that is used on different pages. Otherwise it will be constantly changing with arbitrary and debatable edits and revisions whenever someone decides they want to add new deaths to the new frankenstein estimate. How do you decide which should be added when? What do you do two weeks from now? It will be always going up and down and back again when any editor disagrees with something, and who's going to consider such an irratic table a reliable source for anything? At least with something like "Lancet estimated 100,000 in Sep 04" you know exactly where the figure is coming from, what period it covers and you can evaluate it on its own merits.68.45.226.214 04:18, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

That would make sense if the name of this template were not "Summary of casualties of the 2003 invasion of Iraq" - which suggests that it is actually going to summarize the casualties of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, rather then provide the number of casualties as of some landmark date. We are not coming up with new figures out of thin air, we are doing math - easy math, in fact, mere addition. If the U.S. government reports tomorrow that 50 people were killed, how would it be arbitrary to add that number to the estimated number of casualties?

Because then an Iraqi hospital reported a different number. And so did someone else. And so did someone else. Why should we (wiki editors) add 50 and not all the others? Maybe 50 different incidents will be reported tomorrow, maybe many of them with their own range of differing figures. Do any of them overlap with the 50 reported by the USG? How are all these things handled? Those editorial choices would be what is actually producing this new estimate. And all these choices would be arbitrary and unclarified according to any stated methodology or criteria, and citeable to nobody but you.

Your proposal would be no different then freezing the U.S. death toll at some arbitrary "milestone", like the day we declared "Mission Accomplished", and leaving the template with the appearance that some 200 U.S. troops died instead of 2000. Why push towards keeping numbers we know to be inaccurate? We can do math. bd2412 T 04:52, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

No, it would be nothing at all like that. We have an official source for those figures that compiles them one by one and that regularly updates that total. All that is required of us is citing that source and the figure it gives. Your proposal requires a wiki editor to make editorial choices about what the figure should be, and then publish whichever combination of figures he believes results in a "correct" or "reasonable" estimate. These proposals are completely different.68.45.226.214 05:38, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

There is no editorial choice involved whatsoever. If there are three different sources, and one is reporting 35 deaths in an attack, and one is reporting 40, and one is reporting 45, we don't pick the figure we prefer. We acknowledge that there are three sources that agree that at least 35 people were killed, and at most 45 people were killed. Whatever the lowest number is goes to the minimum count; whatever the highest number is, goes to the maximum count. What we do not do is look at those three numbers and say that because they do not match, no one was killed. bd2412 T 12:49, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you have any clue what's involved in creating estimates like this, and there are actually citeable sources that already do things like you're saying, and according to declared and citeable methodologies, rather than according to glib assurances and oversimplified assumptions. And I don't agree that it's the job of "we" to create estimates rather than cite sources who do. That's not encyclopedic. "bd2412" is not a credible or notable source for casualty totals in Iraq. And what you're saying is completely stupid. Nobody was saying "no one was killed". I think there should be some kind of consensus about this before "we" can just jump on to this table and turn it into something where "we" just make up our own estimates.68.45.226.214 18:54, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

And you already have problems with what you've put on the table now. The 45,017 figure does not correlate with 30,000 from Bush and 14,000 from the UN. There's another "1,017" there somehow, and it's not clear where that figure comes from, or what it "correlates" with. And furthermore, using the figure of "45,017" as your "lowest number" is an editorial choice. The IBC figure is 39,702-44,191. So why have you not put "39,702" as the "lowest number"? If you tallied up the civilian figures at icasualties.org they would be lower still. So why did you make the editorial choice to go with 45,017 as the "lowest number"? Producing your "highest number" would be even more hairy, and require still more editorial choices, as already discussed. For example, I notice on another page you've been creating estimates on, "List of wars and disasters by death toll", about 100,000 Iraqis have suddenly come back to life.68.45.226.214 19:23, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

The Newsweek number correlates in the sense that it is close enough to show that the combined estimates of Bush and the UN are in the ballpark - note that Bush's comment was made on December 12, and the UN report covers from January to June - there were additional deaths in the last three weeks of December, and I had previously noted in the template that over a thousand additional deaths were reported in July. As to your second point, that the IBC figure should stand as the minimum, this mischaracterizes the IBC report. IBC does not purport to reflect the actual number of deaths, but is only a count of those that were reported in media outlets. You have noted above that although Newsweek purports to have based its numbers on IBC, Newsweek's numbers are higher. This shows that Newsweek has captured some information that is not within the category of information that IBC reports.

With respect to the change in the count at List of wars and disasters by death toll, yes, I made this revision to correct an error on my part - I had counted the highest reported estimate from the Lancet study without observing that the study itself had discounted the underlying data as an outlier. This drew the highest statistically reliable number down to 194,000 (which is within the 95% confidence interval of the Lancet study). bd2412 T 20:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Your reply here is completely incoherent and illogical. If it only "correlates in a sense" then the origin of your "45,017" figure is not really known. Second, if IBC should be discarded, then so should Newsweek because the only thing it says it's doing is repeating IBC. You say that since its number is for some (unknown) reason higher, then it's "captured more information" somehow. This is bogus for two reasons. First, that's one of those "editorial choices" you're making, and it contradicts what you've earlier said. You said that you would accept - without any editorial choice - the lowest and highest numbers for your new "min and max" ranges, but here you reject a lower figure for a higher one - in the "min" category, saying that higher one shows it "captured some information" not in the other, but which is new "information" of entirely undeclared origin and unknown accuracy. Then you've also refuted your previous claims about uncritically taking the lowest and highest numbers out there without any editorial choice. If one report says 35 died but another says 40, why should 35 go in the min? The one saying 40 has obviously "captured some information" not in the other, or has it? All contradictory, and exactly why what you're doing here is not credible or appropriate.

Second, Newsweek does not purport to "reflect" what you call "the actual number of deaths" any more than IBC. It purports to be citing IBC and thereby giving a "count of those that were reported in media outlets". Even if it somehow managed to have "captured some information" a little above, and without indicating where that "information" came from or how they processed it, the tiny disparity between Newsweek and IBC could hardly be grounds for claiming that Newsweek "reflects the actual number of deaths" while IBC does not. This is all contradictory editorial choices made by you. Similarly, the UN also only purports to be giving the numbers that have been reported by hospitals and morgues, not what you're selectively calling "the actual number of deaths" when it comes to you choosing to selectively exclude IBC. Or is the UN sum of hospital and morgue deaths somehow an "estimate" while IBC is "not an estimate"? Makes no sense.

As far as I can tell, when you refer to "the actual number of deaths", what you mean is the complete number of all deaths. But the only sources that could claim to give this is either a complete on-the-ground census of the entire Iraqi population (which we don't have) or snapshot statistical estimates that only cover a particular time-period (and which you aren't satisfied with because they don't cover the entire war). That leaves you only with sources that provide a "count of those that were reported" either in media (IBC, Newsweek) or by hospitals and morgues (UN). Thus your grounds for discarding IBC must also discard Newsweek and UN, and everything except the few snapshot estimates out there which don't cover the whole period.

Lastly, your other death toll on the "List" page reveals still more editorializing in concocting these numbers, and still more contradictions. Putting aside the editorial choice to accept or discard the Falluja data in Lancet, you are now using the upper range of the Lancet CI for your editorially selected "highest" figure. But by this logic, the "8,000" at the low end of the CI should be your "lowest" figure to September 2004. Yet you reject it there. Tell me again about "no editorial choices" and "just math".68.45.226.214 20:56, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I do not know your educational background, but I earned a Masters Degree in the statistics-heavy field of Comparative Sociology, which provides me with the training needed to sensibly interpret the Lancet study. As to your suggestion that the 8,000 figure from the Lancet study should be used as the lowest figure, this simply defies common sense. Suppose I were to show you a ten dollar bill, and then put that ten dollar bill in my pocket. Suppose I were then to tell you that the amount of money in my pocket is between two dollars and twenty-five dollars. If I were then to ask you what is the minimum amount of money you think I have in my pocket, it would be insane for you to say that you think I have two dollars, or five dollars, or nine dollars because you know for a fact that the amount of money in my pocket is at least ten dollars. IBC counts the bodies of over 20,000 Iraqis who were killed by September of 2004. Here, I'm showing you 20,000 dead Iraqis, and putting them in my pocket. Now I'm telling you that there are between 8,000 and 194,000 dead Iraqis in my pocket. What is the minimum number of dead Iraqis in my pocket? bd2412 T 21:36, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree the CI range is not credible. But you're missing my point. If the low-end of the CI range is not credible, why should you take the high-end range of the same CI as credible? And if we're going to evaluate the CI ranges based on other evidence, why are we not applying other evidence to evaluate the credibility of the high-end CI range? I think there's evidence out there to suggest the high-end range is also not credible (for example the UNDP study from May 2004, cited here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_in_the_conflict_in_Iraq).

But that's the point. In order to do what you want to do you have to start making all kinds of judgments about the crediblity of various figures and sources, and which to accept or discard. You're not just taking whatever is the lowest and highest figures out there and doing simple math. You're creating new estimates based on a set of your own subjective judgments about the credibility of various figures.

The credibility of the low estimate of the Lancet CI range is not a subjective judgment, it is an objective judgment - the number of actual bodies counted exceeds the amount cited. Although it is a mathematically reasonable range, it clashes with demonstrable facts. The high end of the study is equally credible, but it does not clash with any demonstrable facts. If the high end of the range exceeded the actual number of Iraqis, then such a clash would be present. Like the ten dollars (or 20,000 dead Iraqis) in my pocket, the data itself excludes the lower end of the range, but fails to exclude the upper end. bd2412 T 22:42, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand your point about the lower CI range being superceded by other info, but still if we know the outer edge of the CI at the low end is not credible, it's a bit difficult to assume that the outer edge at the other end is credible at the same time. It was already known anyway that the extreme edges of the CI were at extremely low probability anyway, as compared with areas closer to the middle.

BTW..i just looked at the Newsweek page today, which you had previously used (at just over 45,000 before), and now their total to date is 42,500, which now looks like it follows their stated methodology of using an average of the IBC min/max figures which are now around 40,000min-45,000max. So apparently about 3,000 have come back to life in the last week according to the Newsweek page, or there was some unexplained mistake or something. If you can figure out how that happened let me know. I don't see anything about it on the page.68.45.226.214 01:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Template format changes

The template format changes made by Rnt20 on December 4, 2006 caused some unintended serious problems. When you make such changes in the template please go to some of the pages the template is on in order to see how the template looks in a regular wikipedia page. For example; Casualties of the conflict in Iraq since 2003.

If the changes cause problems, then revert the template page back to what it was until you figure out the problem. I know the reference format is different for templates. Compared to references on regular wikipedia pages. But it was working before. I did not create the format. But as the saying goes "if it aint broke, don't fix it". :)

And feel free to add notes to the Bush links. Just please use the existing reference format. --Timeshifter 21:22, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and added the actual December 2005 Bush quote on 30,000 Iraqi dead. Also this:

CNN writes: "White House spokesman Scott McClellan later said Bush was basing his statement on media reports, 'not an official government estimate.' " --Timeshifter 21:55, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

IBC. Civilian deaths due to insurgent/military action and increased criminal violence.

From the Iraq Body Count project page:

The IBC overview page states: "This is an ongoing human security project which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq that have resulted from the 2003 military intervention by the USA and its allies. The count includes civilian deaths caused by coalition military action and by military or paramilitary responses to the coalition presence (e.g. insurgent and terrorist attacks). It also includes excess civilian deaths caused by criminal action resulting from the breakdown in law and order which followed the coalition invasion." [1]

• [1] = http://www.iraqbodycount.org/background.php --Timeshifter 21:11, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Removing POV caveats and qualifiers

The IBC was described *twice* in this short chart as being "English language media". This is misleading, particularly for short blurb, because people do not generally know what is or is not available in English. Most will probably assume this means news sources in the USA and the UK. But IBC uses lots of international and Arabic sources. The IBC seems to have had a debate with some critics about what significance this might have for their count. The IBC believes little or none because they say most major Arabic sources publish in English and many others are translated by various services which they use. Using the "English language media IBC" formulation seems to clearly take a POV side in this debate, that this "English" thing is some crucial caveat for their count, and tends to imply to readers that IBC doesn't use Arabic reports, but they clearly do. Without a thorough explanation of what this might mean, its inclusion in this short description is misleading and POV. It's inclusion *twice* in the same little section suggests that a previous editor has gone a bit overboard in POV-pushing.Seigfried4220 04:14, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

You deleted sourced material added by several editors. I returned it. I removed one of the English-language media comments. I clarified it by adding "(including Arabic media translated into English)". --Timeshifter 05:42, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

You're a liar. I deleted only what I said above. I reworded a couple things and deleted no sourced material. I deleted *your* POV-pushing caveats and *your* opinionated assertion about what the differences reflect. That's all I deleted, as anyone can see by looking at the history.Seigfried4220 05:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

If you keep up the personal attacks and insults I will be reporting you to the incident board for it. See my user page for links to the relevant wikipedia policies and incident boards. User:Timeshifter

Here below is what I added to Benwing's talk page. User talk:Benwing

Seigfried4220 (74.73.39.219) deleted your material from template.

Hi Benwing. You added some good info to this template: Template:Summary of casualties of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. See this revision difference.

Seigfried4220 (74.73.39.219) just deleted some of it with this edit summary: "deleted opinionated assertion about what the differences reflect". Here is the revision difference.

The sentence he deleted was this one: "The differences reflect differing methodologies as well as differing definitions of the types of death counted."

I like that sentence which is why I left it in when you first put it in. It is a good, simple, NPOV, and necessary introduction to complex casualty stats. I have deleted other info of yours, so I am not kissing your butt. Just pointing out how Seigfried4220 operates. --Timeshifter 06:09, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Seigfried4220 and 4 previous anonymous IP addresses

Seigfried4220 (same person as 74.73.39.219) is currently on a binge inserting POV, and/or deleting sourced info, on several Iraq War casualty pages.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Seigfried4220

Pot, kettle, black. Take a look at Timeshifter's contribs if you want to see a 'binge' of POV edits and deletions of sourced info. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Seigfried4220 (talk • contribs) 05:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC).

BTW..I consider this irrelevant little form letter about IP addresses that you're circulating everywhere to be nothing more than a deceitful smear campaign (to go along with your POV-pushing campaign to pimp the Lancet study). And you wonder why I've questioned your integrity.Seigfried4220 05:54, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Your continued personal attacks may be reported to the incident board for it. See my user page for links to the wikipedia policies and boards concerning personal attacks, etc.. I operate openly. Not behind multiple anonymous IP addresses so that I can come back and create more problems by deleting the same sourced info without being noticed as much. --Timeshifter 06:31, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

---

IP contribution lists with beginning and end dates:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/72.68.212.175 - 14:41, 6 November 2006 to 02:36, 10 November 2006
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/71.246.104.28 - 10:12, 10 November 2006 to 10:47, 16 November 2006

The 71.246.104.28 account linked just above made frequent use of the word "Truthshifter" in comments on this talk page:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Iraq_Body_Count_project

The 74.64.60.148 account linked below made this comment below using the word "Truthshifter." Thus helping to tie all 4 IP address accounts to the same person.

"The first paragraph above is relevant to IBC, but is misrepresented by Jamail and now worse by Truthshifter as a 'criticism' of IBC, while it's not at all like those of Jamail and the others."

Here is the revision difference link below showing the addition of the above statement to the talk page for the Iraq Body Count project.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AIraq_Body_Count_project&diff=99503805&oldid=99450302

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/74.64.60.148 - 11:13, 21 November 2006 to 05:52, 9 January 2007.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/74.73.39.219 - 06:19, 9 January 2007 to Jan. 25, 2007.

---

"PS. I'm also going to use an account. I will be Seigfried.74.73.39.219 00:48, 25 January 2007 (UTC)"

Here is the revision difference link below showing the addition of the above statement to the talk page for the Lancet study:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ALancet_surveys_of_mortality_before_and_after_the_2003_invasion_of_Iraq&diff=103034617&oldid=103031997

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Seigfried4220 - 14:33, 19 January 2007 to ...

Article pages where many attempts at deletion of sourced info by this person has occurred:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_mortality_before_and_after_the_2003_invasion_of_Iraq
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Body_Count_project

--- --Timeshifter 05:42, 25 January 2007 (UTC)