PJ Media

Tina said;

In their 2004 study with the same methodology they found over 200.000 killed in Falujah alone. This was obviously too large, so they just removed the Falujah cluster. But the researchers did no attempt what so ever to explain what bias gave rise to this absurd figure, and used the same method to get the 655.000 figure.

This is an unfair description. They threw out Fallujah because they regarded it as a singular event that was considered unrepresentative of the rest of Iraq. I doubt many would disagree. As for the estimate of 200,000 dead – they state clearly that this is a HIGHLY UNRELIABLE estimate based on a SINGLE cluster. As anyone familiar with statistics knows estimates can be made from any number of samples but when the number of samples is too small the estimates aren’t of much interest.

Tina said;

For the article to be credible there most be at least 500.000 violent death certificates issued by the Iraqi authorities. Otherwise a random sample of could not have found 87% with certificates.

Does anyone believe there are 500.000 certificates issued? Why not show us the records and end the debate

I doubt the records exist. The death certificates were issued by doctors to the families but it unlikely there was functioning central registry because of the chaos, lack of electricity, etc.

As an aside, I doubt that those who suggest all death certificates should be counted understand the enormity of that task.