To the notorious, well you know, rascal pacifist...;-) Michael Pugliese...now being called a COINTELPRO e-mail provocateur on the nutball Chomsky list. HEH, and AARGH.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Pugliese" <debsian at pacbell.net> To: "David McReynolds" <DavidMcR at aol.com> Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 2:36 PM Subject: The American media and its reporting on Iraq
> Caveats
> Please note:
> http://home.att.net/~drew.hamre/docUNICEF.htm
> UNICEF didn't claim that all 500,000 excess deaths could be attributed to
> the embargo. The period covered by UNICEF's study included the Gulf War,
> severe fluctuations in the oil market, and waves of Ba'athist repression.
> These factors -- in addition to sanctions -- all contributed to the
observed
> rise in mortality rates.
> UNICEF didn't attribute blame, and was in fact careful to avoid this
issue.
> However - although the survey did not directly blame increasing mortality
> rates on sanctions - it said the Iraqi people "would not be undergoing
such
> deprivations in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the (UN)
> Security Council."
> 500,000 excess deaths is a statistical estimate whose accuracy is subject
to
> debate. Of this, more needs to be said.
> Sanctions: The dying and the counting
> Economic sanctions are a form of embargo. Because economic sanctions can
> strangle an economy, they are considered one step shy of war. The
sanctions
> on Iraq -- imposed multilaterally on a country dependent on foreign
trade --
> are, to quote fomer State Department spokesman James Rubin, "the toughest,
> most comprehensive sanctions in history".
> Given sanctions' severity it's not surprising that large numbers of Iraqis
> have died, chiefly among the most vulnerable demographics: children, the
> elderly, and the poor. The tragically common progression is that, first
> weakened by malnutrition, they fall prey to respiratory and water-borne
> diseases (dysentery, cholera, diarrhea).
>
> Infant mortality is a recognized marker of societal health. It's regularly
> measured by international organizations, and the epidemiological protocols
> for its study are well established (as described in the UNICEF and Lancet
> reports, above).
>
> Infant mortality is expressed as a rate: the number of deaths per
thousand.
> However, such figures are obscure (Does the average reader know the
> difference between mortality, fertility, and morbidity rates?) and also
> meaningless by themselves (as they express a 'rate', then against what
> base?).
>
> For clarity, especially when discussing mortality in the context of
possibly
> causal events (drought, AIDS, embargo), mortality rates can be converted
to
> "excess death" estimates: a calculation of the number of people who died,
> based on the gap between expected and observed mortality rates. Driving
this
> calculation are assumptions about a) baseline mortality rates, and b)
> population within the target demographic, which is in turn derived from
> estimates of fertility.
>
> The UNICEF baseline and fertility estimates are conceded as reasonable,
> though non-conservative. However, if the goal is to estimate a lower
> threshold for excess deaths (in other words, to support the claim "at
least
> this many excess deaths occurred"), then more conservative assumptions
> should be used.
>
> Following release of the 1999 report, an epidemiologist's private
> communication to UNICEF's statistician argued that fertility in Iraq
> declined through the 1990s due to decreased marriage, higher ages at
> marriage, and emigration of large numbers of fertile adults. Further, the
> epidemiologist argued that an assumption of continued linear decline in
> mortality - based on trends observed in the 1980s - was overly aggressive.
>
> The epidemiologist concluded as follows. Assuming a baseline under-five
> mortality of 50 which does not decline in the 1990s, and using a
> conservative estimate for the under-five population in Iraq (2,756,000)
...
>
> ... one can say with 95% statistical confidence that at least 302,608
excess
> deaths occurred among Iraqi children aged under five between 1991 and 1998
.
> In other words, even when re-cast by a partial, conservative accounting,
> this remains one of the larger tolls for a political conflict over the
last
> century.
>
> Other estimates, including Government of Iraq data
> Prior to the UNICEF survey, several independent estimates of Iraqi
mortality
> were published. These studies were often handicapped by a lack of data.
For
> a fuller discussion of UN agency figures on mortality, see economist Colin
> Rowat's July 2000 briefing, U.N. Agency reports on the humanitarian
> situation in Iraq (PDF format).
> Shortly before UNICEF's study was published, Columbia University
> epidemiologist Richard Garfield published a critique of the earlier data,
> and this review (Morbidity and Mortality Among Iraqi Children from 1990
> Through 1998: Assessing the Impact of the Gulf War and Economic Sanctions
> (July 1999)) remains extremely helpful.
>
> Regarding Government of Iraq data, it's generally held that Ministry of
> Health figures are unreliable. An extensive critique of IMoH figures has
> been published by Amatzia Baram in the The Middle East Journal. Even
beyond
> the suspicion that such figures are inflated for their propoganda value,
> they are methodologically flawed.
>
> As Professor Garfield notes elsewhere ("The Public Health Impact of
> Sanctions" in Middle East Report, Number 215, Summer 2000), IMoH data
since
> 1993 has counted the following hospital deaths as due to sanctions:
>
> For children under 5: respiratory infections, diarrhea, gastroenteritis,
and
> malnutrition;
> For all those over five: cardiac diseases, hypertension, diabetes
mellitus,
> renal diseases, liver diseases, and cancers.
> Of course, not all deaths from these causes are actually due to sanctions
> (especially for those over five, as heart disease and cancer were common
> before sanctions). Further, 'diagnostic drift' may occur due to the
> presumption of causality by those recording the deaths.
>
> On the other hand, IMoH data doesn't include deaths occuring outside
> hospitals (a substantial number), and many deaths are attributed to
"unknown
> causes" due to lack of diagnostic equipment.
>
> These methodological problems may counterbalance, somewhat; surprisingly,
in
> fact, IMoH estimates line up reasonably well with independent data.
>
> "The Evidence of Silence": The U.S. Press
> To my knowledge, UNICEF's excess death estimate has never appeared in the
> New York Times or the Washington Post. The omission dates from inception.
> Neither paper included this figure when reporting on the UNICEF study,
> though it was included in reports by the BBC, the AP, AFP, and the Sunday
> Times of London, among others.
>
> As time has passed - and as the estimate continus to be reported elsewhere
> (even in the Post's sibling, Newsweek, for example) - the 'language of
> omission' has become more baroque.
>
> One of the more desperate tap-dances around this information appeared in
the
> Washington Post (Howard Schneider's "Letter from Baghdad", February 23,
> 2000, p. C01). Schneider's article refers to "controversial estimates of
> 'excess deaths'" without ever reporting the actual figure.
>
> The same report notes that "U.N. officials ... have documented acute
> problems exacerbated by the sanctions, including a steep rise in infant
> mortality after the Persian Gulf War and recurrence of diseases due to
poor
> sanitation and the initial collapse of immunization programs". Of course,
> the excess death estimate is based on these same data ... a fact the Post
> leaves unsaid.
>
> Do the Post and Times ever report 'excess deaths'?
> Do the Post and Times ever report 'excess deaths'? Yes, of course they do.
>
> Consider how both papers dealt recently with excess death estimates in The
> Congo. Barbara Crossette in The Times mentions the estimate -- 2.5 million
> deaths -- in passing simply to provide a scale for the impact of the
> conflict. She does so with none of the obfuscations that characterize her
> writing on Iraq.
>
> In the Washington Post, Karl Vick's treatment of the same estimate is
> exemplary, as it explains the lineage of the data and qualifies it
> statistically.
>
> Note that the Congo estimate by the International Rescue Committee is
> causally similar to UNICEF's Iraq study ("the overwhelming majority of
> deaths were related to disease and malnutrition—the tragic byproduct of a
> war that decimated Congo's health care system and economy"). The IRC
itself
> uses the phrase "excess death" estimate in the headline of its press
> release.
>
> "The Evidence of Silence": The U.S. Government
> UNICEF's excess death estimates are never mentioned by the U.S. State
> Department unless its hand is forced. Following is an exchange during a
> press briefing, which occurred in the context of the second protest
> resignation by a UN Humanitarian Aid coordinator for Iraq (in this case,
> Count Hans von Sponeck).
>
> QUESTION: Yeah, one more (question). Within (von Sponeck's) range of
> competence, however, were infant deaths.
>
> MR. RUBIN: Right.
>
> QUESTION: And (von Sponeck) says - basically he thinks - he says on UN
> surveys that somewhere between 5 and 6,000 premature infant deaths occur
in
> Iraq each month.
>
> MR. RUBIN: Right. With respect to infant mortality, there has been
numerous
> reports on this. I would be happy to get you the various conflicting data
on
> it.
>
> Rubin insinuates that, since the estimates vary, they're not of concern.
If
> in Rubin's comment we hear echoes of Holocaust denial, that impression is
> only reinforced upon learning that Count von Sponeck's father was a German
> General ordered killed by Hitler in 1944.
>
> - Commentary by Drew Hamre
>
>
> Photos on this page Copyright UNICEF, 1999.
>
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