The Disastrous Toll of the Iraq War

In light of the new study of deaths caused by the War in Iraq, Sam reminds us of this pair of classic posts by Daniel Davies, debunking the know-nothing attempts to attack the study. Needless to say, as Greenwald notes “Bush followers have become overnight expert statisticians and are able — with certainty no less — to declare these numbers to be wildly inflated and unreliable (some try to provide some reasoning, while some don’t even bother).” He does leave out Rick Moran, who also tries to claims that the study was “politically motivated” because…there were erroneous critiques of the study in 2004! (The fact that he’s bringing up stuff like the Iraqi Body Count makes clear that he simply doesn’t understand what the study is analyzing, let alone understand anything about statistical methodology.) The statistical ignorance about to be launched by Bush administration dead-enders is going to be staggering, and it’s safe to say we’re not going to see anything that Davies hasn’t already addressed and disproven.