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Iraqi Civilian Casualties: 2007 More Deadly Than 2006
It took some time and effort, but, with the aid of TPM readers, we've obtained two complete lists of monthly Iraqi civilian casualties from January 2006 forward. Taking these numbers on their own terms, they do not bear out the claims made by the Bush administration and U.S. military that the surge has reduced Iraqi civilian casualties. Comparing each month's death toll in 2007 to the death toll from that same month in 2006, the numbers show that surge has not made Iraq safer for the civilian population. By some measurements, Iraqis are in greater danger than a year ago.
It's a sign of how skewed the debate over the Iraq War is that these numbers are not readily available. Different Iraqi government agencies present different casualty figures. The U.S. military's own casualty total is said to rely on the Iraqis, but it's unclear which Iraqi agency it uses or what adjustments are made to the Iraqi figures. Even as today's testimony from General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker is considered a possible make-or-break moment for U.S. policy on Iraq, with the Bush Administration and the Pentagon touting the success of the surge in reducing civilian casualties, there is no general agreement on what civilian casualties have been or on what the most accurate methodology for tallying casualties is.
The two lists presented here rely on statistics gathered by the Associated Press and by Iraq Body Count, a reputable British organization that has done Herculean work in compiling civilian-casualty data. It's important to note that these lists aren't comprehensive. Tallying Iraqi civilian casualties is an incomplete and arduous task, made extremely difficult by the situation on the ground. Both surveys readily acknowledge that their figures are undercounts of the true Iraqi civilian casualty rate. But the significance of these two charts is that each study employs its own internally consistent methodology for determining Iraqi casualties and has done so over a significant period of time, allowing an independent assessment -- albeit imprecise -- to measure against what we'll hear from Petraeus and Crocker.
Since April 2005, the AP has tracked Iraqi casualty data by relying on hospital, police and military officials and morgue workers, as well as reporters and photographers at the scenes and verifiable, two-source witness accounts. I tracked down the data that the AP had already reported, compiled it month by month, and the AP reconfirmed it for me to ensure that I didn't neglect or misunderstand something. Comparing AP's figures for each month in 2007 to those for its 2006 antecedent -- see the first chart -- 2007 is more deadly for Iraqis than 2006 was. Looking just at the post-February 2007 surge, the numbers for Iraqi casualties fluctuate month by month, and show no clear decline in civilian casualties.
The second list we obtained is from Iraq Body Count, whose methodology centers on "cross-checked media reports, hospital, morgue, NGO and official figures." Its numbers tell a more complicated story. Unlike with the AP's figures, the IBC's reflect a minimum-maximum range owing to questions about the exact numbers of civilians killed, for instance, in a particular bombing, or the civilian status of others. (See the second chart.) But they generally find that the surge hasn't resulted in significantly lower civilian casualties for Iraqis this year. So far, the first four months following the surge are deadlier overall than their 2006 counterparts, with May 2007 being about as bad as May 2006, and June 2007 being better than June 2006.
IBC's Hamit Dardagan, to whom I am indebted for breaking these numbers down by month and explaining IBC's methodology, caveats the organization's assessment by saying that the more recent data are incomplete. The figures after March 2007, a month into the surge, are "probably lacking hundreds (though never into the thousands) of deaths each month, which it would contain if these months were as 'finished' as the earlier periods." IBC is continually revising earlier months' figures as new data becomes available. So expect the numbers to be revised upward in the coming months.
If you chart the month-to-month civilian casualty statistics just in 2007 then the post-surge monthlies in the AP's count toggle a bit, but they hit a high in May, drop significantly in June, and creep back upward afterward. In the IBC's count, since the surge begins, the numbers drop in April, tick up slightly in May and then drop in June. That pattern roughly tracks with the AP's findings, giving confidence in the methodology of each. (However, the post-April 2007 figures are probably going to be revised upward.)
What the figures do show, however, is that 2007 remains more deadly for Iraqis, month for month, than did 2006. The two exceptions, May and June 2007 in IBC's count, may not stay exceptions for long, but they count as less deadly months for Iraqis than the previous year. In neither count did Iraq experience fewer than 1000 civilian casualties each month in 2007.
Neither of these counts include other important metrics, such as population displacement or sectarian killings; nor killings by Shiite death squads vs. Sunni insurgents; or incidences of car bombings or other mass-casualty events.
Finally, let me extend my personal thanks to the literally dozens of readers who wrote in with invaluable research help. You're what sets this medium apart. From what I've read over the last several days, I know I can trust you to correct me with any mistakes.
Comments (33)
TSUMBRA wrote on September 10, 2007 11:59 AM:"OLEB and Texas Death Master"
www.ilovepoetry.com/viewpoem.asp?id=93328
Long ago silence only brought death and disaster?
workaday joe wrote on September 10, 2007 12:05 PM:Another great effort by TPM. Thanks so much for getting these numbers together. I'm not sure where else you could get this kind of transparent and thorough analysis.
The take-home message seems a little mixed since the IBC numbers seem the most reliable and they either show a decline in civilian deaths or are incomplete at best. This is the most obvious talking point for anyone advocating for the surge. And it this point, it is tough to refute with any great certainty.
illlich wrote on September 10, 2007 12:22 PM:An uninformed public is a pliable public.
It must be beyond difficult for Iraq Body Count to try to get an accurate count, though their methodology seems more likely to be accurate than anyone else (including most journalists, who have become increasingly lazy over the years).
bryan wrote on September 10, 2007 12:24 PM:While reading this post and listening to the radio, i just heard that the WH and Petraeus are modifying their view of success, not in terms lowered death toll, but in how successful the Iraqi parliament is in debating and passing legislation (instead of stonewalling each other and inciting violence.)
Funny thing -- the Iraqi Parliament has been on vacation for a month. So they have basically set the bar as low as it can be -- while the Iraqi gov. was on vacation there were no instances of the parliament inciting violence or failing to pass crucial legislation. Huge success -- keep the surge surging. Great!
Richard L. Adlof wrote on September 10, 2007 12:27 PM:And there is less folk to kill . . . So the increase is worse than we figure.
Mudge wrote on September 10, 2007 12:33 PM:I still don't understand if the wounded in a particular event are tracked and added if they die. Both the AP and IBC cite hospitals, but it is not clear if the hospitals report DOAs or track the wounded.
I have never seen a discussion of the wounded who die later.
cervantes wrote on September 10, 2007 12:52 PM:Both these counts are a total crock. Many of us who follow Iraq closely consider IBC to be a counterproductive, even fraudulent enterprise, that just plays into the hand of supporters of the war by producing a gross understatement of the true number of casualties, and dressing it up in a veneer of respectability.
The AP count is even worse.
You should not give publicity, or credit, to these fraudulent numbers.
mark wrote on September 10, 2007 1:00 PM:cervantes,
is it just an unknown, then? Are there better numbers somewhere? What is your guess? Please we are starved for information....
Frankly wrote on September 10, 2007 1:34 PM:One possible explanation for Patreus' numbers showing a decline:
If the Iraqi parliament has to take August off because of the heat, maybe the insurgents are just waiting for cooler weather as well.
cervantes wrote on September 10, 2007 1:39 PM:It's not the heat, it's the stupidity.
The best estimate is the much disparaged study done by Johns Hopkins researchers in collaboration with Iraqis and publishe in The Lancet in 2006. That survey was based on area probability sampling methods and therefore gave a credible estimate -- which happened to be 20 times the Iraq Body Count estimate. It's because of the clowns at IBC that Bush got away with saying there had been 30,000 Iraqi deaths due to conflict since the invasion, instead of the true number which was more like 600,000. If you extrapolate, we're probably over a million now, but who's counting?
The analysis presented here, I'm afraid, it totally spurious. These numbers mean nothing. I wish I had a better answer for you, but sometimes the soul of wisdom is to admit what you don't know.
I recommend Iraq Today (http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/), to which I contribute, as a comprehensive attempt to round up what we do know every day -- but it's a narrow and selective window into a dark reality
Daniel A. Greenbaum wrote on September 10, 2007 1:49 PM:You certainly did great work. Without in anyway disagreeing with what you say General Petreus just gave a series of numbers, for example a reduction of civilian deaths, that contradict yours. He made the claim that his number have been checked and are the most accurate available. What actually accounts for these differences, and I don't mean motives but simply how can Petreus square his numbers with yours?
Tom Hertz wrote on September 10, 2007 1:52 PM:Why compare a month to that month last year? Do we have evidence of seasonality in suicide bombings? Let's read these numbers right -- the news is bad enough. A better way is a straight time series, two years long. Nov-Dec 06 (AP) or July-Dec 06 (IBC) appear to have been particularly bad months; the current numbers from AP show not much improvement from then, and figures that are still higher than Jan-Oct 06, by far.
The IBC numbers DO appear to show a downward trend since Feb 07, the start of the surge. But who is kidding who? The US military is fiddling while Baghdad burns. No sane observer thinks we can "win" this one.
James Pappas wrote on September 10, 2007 2:13 PM:I think the more important number being missed is the death rate or rate per capita- consider fro example that once thriving professional class Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad are every bit as depopulated as New Orleans, and millions are in Damascus, Amman, and elsewhere. An absolute FALL in deaths would prove nothing other than statistics can be misleading.
I'll put my PhD aside, and call me simple, but anyone who thinks that 30,000 additional American troops can trump 3,000 years of ethnic and religious strife is smoking something : those who cannot remember the past , such as early 20th Britain' s "Iraqi" misadventure, are condemned to repeat it.
Springborn wrote on September 10, 2007 2:25 PM:Thanks for putting this data together. Your year-on-year comparison is an interesting first step to looking at the efficacy of the "surge" but can't answer the real civilian death question: what would 2007 civilian death counts look like if the surge had not occurred? Comparison to 2006 is only valid if the surge is the *only* factor influencing deaths which has changed in Iraq (and of course we know this assumption fails). Without the surge would we have expected civilian deaths in 2007 to mirror those of 2006? Tactics have changed. Numbers of vulnerable citizens have changed. The onus is on surge boosters to argue that without the surge the numbers for 2007 would have been significantly worse. The onus is on surge critics to argue that without the surge these numbers would not have been significantly worse. Unfortunately there is a tremendous amount of wiggle room on both of those sides.
JEP wrote on September 10, 2007 2:37 PM:"I know I can trust you to correct me with any mistakes."
no, that should be, "I know I can trust you to correct my mistakes."
...just snarkin'
scuseme wrote on September 10, 2007 3:29 PM:As I understood it, the Lancet study reports all deaths linked to the invasion, including things like increased crime, lack of food or clean water, lack of hospital care for the sick, lack of electricity etc, in addition to insurgency, civil war, death squads, ethnic cleansing and terrorism. The result is an overall higher death rate than existed during the Saddam era over the war's duration which totals up to a million or so additional deaths. These other estimates are for deaths caused just by sectarian violence, insurgency and terrorism. The elephant in the living room is the largest source of additional death in Iraq is the failure and incompetence of the Bush administration and their Vichy government.
John Eaton wrote on September 10, 2007 3:37 PM:Well done. I hope that someone in Congress takes the time - even using Petreus' numbers to show a graph that lines up 2007 months with 2006 months. for instance if you compare car bomb attacks from Petreus' chart on high profile attacks in May, June, July and August 2006 to May, June, July and August of 2007, the pattern is not encouraging. This is the exercise with troop deaths that Juan Cole inspired. The best visual for that was produced by Angry Bear. http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2007/09/true-statements.html
Matt Graham wrote on September 10, 2007 4:33 PM:I agree with most posters that the numbers are pretty much irrelevant for a number of reasons. That said, the three charts (AP vs. IBC vs. Petraeus) all seem to agree pretty well both in scale and in shape considering how difficult this count is.
Deaths peaked in December/January at ~2500-3000/month and now seems to have settled down to ~1500-2000/month...still a lot higher than 18 months ago but about the same it was a year ago (except for the AP, which had a much more quite summer in 2006 than the other two).
One thing that the Petraeus plot shows is that the violence has indeed moved from Baghdad...prior to the surge >50% of deaths were in the city and now it's more like 33%. I wonder if the other studies show this trend as well.
Casey Morris wrote on September 10, 2007 4:42 PM:Am I concerned about the Petraeus led, media enabled bamboozlement on Iraq? Yes. How much? So much so that I sent this e-mail to my congressperson. Fortunately, since she is new and I kneow some of the staff, the information can perhaps get into the right hands. But what about the rest?
The bubble of Washington information is frightening in that its very nature is to repeat and pass around the same bad numbers among the same folks for wider dissemination down the legislative ranks. Most staff lack the time and funds to be able to performt he function that TPM eaders and staff have performed here.
Many thanks for this information to all who contributed.
buddhabrad wrote on September 10, 2007 4:43 PM:But the Petraeus numbers were verified by the Dept of Yellowcake and the Institute for Daisy Cutter Studies.... How dare any of you question them?
john mccutchen wrote on September 10, 2007 4:54 PM:Iraqis don't feel safe either. Not even in al-Anbar.
Fancy that
WASHINGTON (AP)- Overwhelming numbers of Iraqis say the U.S. troop buildup has worsened security and the prospects for economic and political progress in their country, according to a poll released Monday that provides a strikingly bleak appraisal of the war.
Forty-seven percent want American forces and their coalition allies to leave the country immediately, the survey showed, 12 points more than said so in a March poll as the troop increase was beginning. And 57 percent — including nearly all Sunnis and half of Shiites — said they consider attacks on coalition forces acceptable, a slight increase over the past half year.
Seventy percent in the survey said they believe security has worsened where the added forces were sent, with another 11 percent saying the buildup has had no effect. Similar numbers said security in other parts of the country has deteriorated and that overall economic and political conditions have declined.
Only a quarter said their own communities have become safer in the past half year. Every person interviewed in Baghdad and Anbar province, a Sunni-dominated area where Bush recently visited and cited progress, said the troop increase has worsened security.
iron wrote on September 11, 2007 4:13 AM:The poll was conducted August 17 to 24 and involved face-to-face interviews in Arabic or Kurdish with 2,212 randomly chosen adult Iraqis from across the country. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points, and was conducted by D3 Systems of Vienna, Va., and KA Research Limited of Istanbul.
Lets face it..after Januari 2007 Mr Bush and his army is facing with someone who strive for the greatness of Islam. Islam is too holy to be claimed as terrorist.. Islam is too Great to be defeated,and too powerfull to be named as an enemy.. Islam gives peace and hope and understanding.. They who do not want to think.. and who do not use their time carefully... will be the looser...
cervantes wrote on September 11, 2007 8:56 AM:Happy fasting..May Allah guide us all.. PEACE!
Scuseme --
While the Lancet study does include deaths not directly caused by politically motivated violence, most of the deaths were indeed the result of violence, a majority by U.S. forces. And as for this execrable project by Mr. Ackerman, let me quote from (http://www.thecatsdream.com/blog/2007/09/tribe-in-ivory-tower.htm)Grabriele Zamparini:
The genocide of the Iraqi people is completely ignored by most of the state-corporate media through a propaganda campaign of colossal proportion that sees at its centre John Sloboda’s Iraq Body Count [IBC]. Most of the intellectuals and activists who have built a career in the anti-war business remain silent when not defending and endorsing IBC and its propaganda campaign with preposterous arguments.
snip
To fully understand the grotesque absurdity of this propaganda campaign and its genocidal effects, one has just to compare the fiction above with the reality published by Uruknet:
40,000 unidentified corpses buried in Najaf since the beginning of the US-led invasion
Middle East Online
September 9, 2007
An Iraqi official made known that from the beginning of the US-led invasion in 2003, 40,000 unidentified corpses have been buried in the holy city of Najaf.
Ahmed Di'aibil, the Najaf Governorate’s spokesperson, said, "the official count of the unidentified corpses buried in the cemetery Wadi Al-Salam (Valley of the Peace) exceeded 40,000".
Ahmed Di'aibil stated that every week up to 200 corpses were brought to Najaf, even though the number is declining.
The Najaf Governorate’s spokesperson added that all corpses are photographed and numbered and the place where the corpse is found is registered to allow an eventual identification by the families.
IBC has been spreading its propaganda to the four corners of the planet, it’s been welcomed and celebrated by the war mongers, offered space and time by the propaganda apparatus of the mainstream media. It’s shocking it’s still accepted by the alternative media as a serious source to inform about the carnage in Iraq. Shamefully shocking!
etc.
This post, Mr. Ackerman, is a disgrace, and you should withdraw it.
EthanS wrote on September 11, 2007 11:01 AM:cervantes,
are you aware that Najaf is a unique case, not representative of the entire country? That the 40,000 corpses come from all across Iraq, and probably outside as well?
Suggesting that this is representative would be like asserting that Arlington National Cemetery was merely a normal cemetery near a large American city, and implying that every American city was hosting an equally large number of funerals for it's local fallen soldiers.
From Global Security.org:
Najaf
Wadi al-Salam Cemetery
Shiites from all over the world, not only Iraqis or Iranians, but Shiites from Pakistan, India, Bahrain, all over the world go to Najaf and they ask to be buried in Najaf close to that mosque. And historically and religiously it's a very important city and mosque for Shiite Muslims. Shiites aspire to bury their dead in its cemetery, which stretches for miles. To the north and east of the town there are acres of graves and myriads of domes of various colors and at various stages of disrepair. The cemetery of Al-Najaf is one of the largest cemeteries in the world. Perhaps the most extraordinary thing in Najaf is the graveyard. Millions of Muslims over the centuries have been brought here for burial from all parts of the world of Islam. So Najaf is embraced by a vast semi-circle of graves- by an immense City of the Dead.
The Wadi al-Salam [Valley of Peace] cemetery is believed to be either the largest or the second largest cemetery in the world. It is the holiest and most highly sought-after burial place among Shiites. There are acres of graves and myriads of domes of various colours and at various stages of disrepair to the North and East of the town. Corpses are brought from across Iraq, Iran and elsewhere in the Shiite world to lie close to Imam Ali, the cousin of Muhammad and his successor, whose remains are enshrined in a gold-domed mosque. The trade involving transporting dead bodies from far off areas of Shi'a dead has been operating for centuries. Saddam had curtailed the "corpse traffic" from Iran after the war started in 1980, but after his fall it resumed, reviving the local economy with a profitable "corpse traffic" of at least a 100 funerals a day. The corpse traffic is organized and regulated by the Customs and Health Departments -- Customs collects duty on the corpses and Health keeps watch to prevent epidemics.
markm wrote on September 11, 2007 12:54 PM:FYI
zululima wrote on September 11, 2007 1:26 PM:The only existing scientific peer-reviewed estimate of Iraqi deaths is the study published by the Lancet (a top medical journal) and supported by solid research institutions like John Hopkins and MIT. Regardless of Mr Ackerman's (presumably good) intentions it is important to understand how odious and harmful it is to fail to mention this work when writing about Iraqi casualties. This would be like discussing, say, the age of an ancient wooden artifact and omitting that it has been carbon-dated.
The Lancet data may not be suitable for month-to-month analysis, so we can accept the use of other sources based on continuous sampling. It is properly admitted that these sources (like IBC) are likely undercounts. However, it is unconscionable not to even mention that, according to the latest published research, these estimates are likely off the mark not by a few percentage points but by orders of magnitude. The Lancet estimate is about 20 times higher than that of
IBC. And whatever one thinks of IBC (not to mention Iraqi government data), it is not peer-reviewed science.
This kind of omission, usually by well-meaning journalists, is exactly what keeps propaganda systems going.
JoeCaribe wrote on September 12, 2007 6:15 PM:peer-reviewed science.
Posted by: zululima
Date: September 11, 2007 1:26 PM
Iraqis and Americans are dying. Shouldn't that be our Science?
Doug wrote on October 1, 2007 7:17 PM:After reading all this arguing over numbers of civilian deaths in Iraq, it does not seem like anyone cares about who is doing the killing. It is not the US troops killing civilians! If all you people worried about the civilians being killed over there you need to call your senators and ask them to back our troops and stop telling them we cannot win and stop telling them the US troops are defeated. Lets RETREAT from DEFEAT!!!
BTW AP is a left reporting agency Do you really want to argue with them as a source of information?
Doug wrote on October 1, 2007 7:17 PM:After reading all this arguing over numbers of civilian deaths in Iraq, it does not seem like anyone cares about who is doing the killing. It is not the US troops killing civilians! If all you people worried about the civilians being killed over there you need to call your senators and ask them to back our troops and stop telling them we cannot win and stop telling them the US troops are defeated. Lets RETREAT from DEFEAT!!!
BTW AP is a left reporting agency Do you really want to argue with them as a source of information?
Doug wrote on October 1, 2007 7:17 PM:After reading all this arguing over numbers of civilian deaths in Iraq, it does not seem like anyone cares about who is doing the killing. It is not the US troops killing civilians! If all you people worried about the civilians being killed over there you need to call your senators and ask them to back our troops and stop telling them we cannot win and stop telling them the US troops are defeated. Lets RETREAT from DEFEAT!!!
BTW AP is a left reporting agency Do you really want to argue with them as a source of information?
Corinne wrote on October 1, 2007 7:34 PM:someone wrote there has been 600,000 civilian deaths since the freedom for Iraq began Even using AP guessing showed an average of less than 1500 deaths a month during 2006. Do the math it would take over 33 years to add up to 600,000 deaths
WAKE UP PEOPLE
I.M. Small wrote on November 28, 2007 12:03 PM:IT FALLS ON YOU
"He´s fucking faking that he´s dead,"
So said the young marine
Before two gunshots to the head:
So videotape has seen.
You saw the tape, and so did I,
Such murders, in a war
Come commonplace, no infamy
Especial, wide nor far;
Yet it did not get broadcast long,
Civilians so protested
Vituperative, the message strong,
Because the scene suggested
That soldiers of these USA
Like any soldiers are
In league with savagery when they
Participate in war.
The journalist as shot the tape
Received from far and wide
Death threats--civilians, you escape
Awhile but cannot hide.
The leveling of neighborhoods,
The raping of young children,
Routine the pilfering of goods,
All deeds for which no gildering,
These rest upon your stupid souls,
Exporting, by war´s means,
Domestic hatreds--on the doles
Compounded yet the liens.
Murders in war, if not routine
Belie the commonplacer
Deaths of civilians--war´s machine
Of beauty is defacer.
The little girl, all prettified
Dressed in her schoolgirl skirt,
Legs crushed, war wound tore open wide,
A dead thing in the dirt.
It falls upon you, O who love
To view the cause as noble,
Aggressive war--but not enough
In Basra or in Kabul
To justify that lily-white
The hands you love to wash so
Are sinless, even though they quite
Applaud the big kibosh so.
So you love censorship, but though
C. Adams wrote on December 11, 2007 2:38 PM:Your hand felt not the trigger,
It was your deed, and more you know
Than merely one sand nigger.
Has anyone tried superimposing the casualty numbers reported by each Petreus and by AP or IBC both BEFORE and after the surge? A curious thing: Petreus' numbers since the surge are very similar to those reported by AP and IBC, but his numbers BEFORE the surge are two to three times higher than those reported by AP and IBC. Using just Petreus' numbers, it would appear the surge had the effect of reducing casualies far more dramatically than by using AP/IBC numbers. In addition, both sets of numbers before the surge peak around Nov and Dec of 2006 but actually start declining in January and February - BEFORE the surge ever started and shortly AFTER the Iraq Study Group report issued and SOME groups in Iraq decided to work with the US - indicating that diplomatic efforts (in addition to having no one left to kill) were having an effect that the surge gladly took credit for.