January 17 - Where Are They Now? Wednesday - 500,000 Iraqis

This week’s WHERE ARE THEY NOW? WEDNESDAY is 500,000 Iraqis.

See if you can follow their math, rhetoric aside, because it doesn’t add up.

There are four “Scientific” estimates on the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the start of the war in 2003.

#1 - A study by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health used samples of casualties from Iraqi households to extrapolate an overall figure of 601,027 Iraqis dead from violence between March 2003 and July 2006. This “Study” was news on all the major networks last November during the ratings sweeps period.

What they didn’t tell you was that it was an estimate and not a precise count. Researchers acknowledged a margin of error that ranged from 426,369 to 793,663 deaths or more than 360K people, or the population of Honolulu.

If you take this report and project out the months of July-December 2006 on a linear basis, their number of deaths would be 690,000.

#2 - A report from by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq released a report yesterday based upon figures from the Medico-Legal Institute of Baghdad and from hospitals in Iraq. It estimates that 34,452 Iraqis were killed in Iraq in 2006. Again, extrapolated on a linear basis yields a total civilian war death in the war to date of 130,000.

I can’t imagine anyone doubting the U.N. Anyone can lose track of a BILLION Dollars in a food for oil program.

#3 - Iraq’s Health Minister, Ali al-Shimari, made an off-the cuff estimate this past November that he thought 150,000 Iraqis have been killed since the war stated in 2003. Ali could use the same methodology to guestimate how many jellybeans are in the large jar at Floyd’s Barber Shop in Mayberry.

#4 – An organization named, The Iraqi Body Count, (I kid you not, I want that on my business card), has recorded the deaths of more than 52,000 Iraqi civilians since 2003. They do hedge their numbers by saying that many go unreported. You can’t prove a false negative. It’s like if a tree falls in the forest, and if no one is there to hear it, does it make a noise?

So, in summary if you take the 2 most documented studies concerning Iraqi death estimates, you have a 500K + person delta. The number is actually 560,000. (690,000-130,000). However in keeping with the obscure methodology, I rounded my number downward.

My WHERE ARE THEY NOW? WEDNESDAY is what happened to 500,000 people? Are they non-dead, (i.e. alive)? Did someone cook the books for their own political purposes? (nah, that would never happen.) Something is rotten in the state of Denmark (and Iraq), and I don’t think it is decaying corpses.

Maybe, we should poll the American public and see how many Iraqi civilian deaths they think have occurred. You know how I feel about polls.

Speaking about dead bodies, I do have some personal experience.

During the summer break between my freshman and sophomore years in college, I picked up dead bodies for the Zanesville Ambulance Services. I would transport the bodies from their place of death to the morgue or a local funeral home.

I was paid a flat fee of $35 per body, regardless of age, sex, color, creed, method of death, or weight. Sometimes, weight was the one wildcard that could make or break your day.

The body count for the entire summer was 7. I don’t think we needed to extrapolate or interpolate any values, because I know there were 7 bodies I picked up and transported. My W-2 for the year showed a gross, (and I mean gross), earnings of $245.

The next summer I worked at Cedar Point as a “Weight Guesser.” I believe my experience picking up dead bodies not only motivated me to find another job, but also gave me some hands on experience to excel at the amusement park job. After all, no one wants to be dead weight.

Thank you. Thank you. I’ll be here till Thursday. Remember to tip your waiters and waitresses.