Missing From That Lancet Article on Iraq

There’s an odd omission of context in that article just published in the Lancet, on Iraqi mortality before and after the U.S.-led coalition’s 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein. While the article purports to measure and categorize the causes of death, none of the following names or words appear:

1. Iran
2. Syria
3. Saudi Arabia
4. Palestinian
5. Saddam Hussein
6. Terrorist/Terrorism

This is curious, because the violence in Iraq is not taking place in a U.S.-U.K.-occupied vacuum. While the U.S. and U.K. have been spending blood and treasure in the attempt to engender a secure and democratic Iraq, terrorists and their backers — including Iranians, Syrians, Saudis, Palestinians, brutal Saddam loyalists, and such personalities as the late Zarqawi — have been busy for years now poisoning the Iraqi pot, with the evident aim of maximizing carnage and conflict. To the questions being asked about the methodology of this study, may we add a query about why the authors apparently concerned themselves so little with trying to measure that lethal element, and so much with blaming the U.K. and U.S.? And if they really mean to imply that it would be a safer world, or even a safer Iraq, with Saddam still in power –which is the scenario of their baseline assumption — that raises another question. May we hear more about the methodology by which they assured themselves that Saddam — who filled mass graves, gassed his own people, started two wars, and by 2003 via Oil-for-Food had pretty much corrupted his way out from under UN sanctions — would have gone on no new binges of butchery and war?