IBC defends:
5 There are no "gross errors" that IBC needs to correct
2 IRAQ BODY COUNT REFUSES TO RESPOND Media Lens, 14 March, 2006.
[close]60 See Appendix 5.a. for a case where Media Lens take credit for "(limited) progress" on a BBC web page produced in collaboration with IBC. The carefully-worded caveats on the web page were in place one month before the first Media Lens "Alert" on IBC.
[close]61 "IBC : "concessions" to critics, begrudgingly, and by stealth, but little clarity." Media Lens message post by "bern", March 30, 2006.
[close]63 On Iraq Body Count, Section 6.0 Geneva, February 17, 2006. Online version released March 15, 2006.
[close]64 See sections 7 and 8 of IBC editorial, Feb 2004.
[close]In one of their "Alerts", Media Lens Editors David Cromwell and David Edwards state:
It is remarkable that IBC - a deeply flawed website - has acquired this kind of reputation among journalists. In a recent article for the website AlterNet, Les Roberts wrote that the estimate of 20,000 to 30,000 civilian deaths commonly cited in the American press are too low, "most likely by a factor of five or ten"...
Only one conclusion can be drawn: that the journalists citing the IBC figures have not studied the IBC database and so have not seen the massive bias and gaps in reported deaths.
There is another conclusion that can be drawn: that our critics have failed to see the biases and gaps in the positions which they so confidently promote as certain truth, and which would have easily been revealed by the exercise of some of that "professional rigour" which they assume is absent from the work of those they criticise. A less partisan and loaded approach to IBC might also have allowed them to enter into a constructive debate with us rather than a destructive public confrontation.
IBC's work is not perfect, and neither is our website. We started our work with little conception of what would be involved, and no idea that our work would intensify continuously over the three years our project has been in existence. Our small volunteer workforce has been constantly taxed by the relentless inflow of press and media reports that need to be scanned, archived and analysed, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
In the gaps between our basic tasks, we do what we can to update, improve, and explain our work, through the editorial content on our website, and in some cases, in direct cooperation with news organizations, guiding them on how to appropriately present IBC and its numbers.
But this non-urgent work has always had to take second place to our primary data gathering tasks, and the continual updating of the database.
We cannot be held responsible for every misunderstanding or misuse of our data, deliberate or otherwise, given the hundreds if not thousands of sources that continue to use it. It lies well beyond the power of IBC to prevent politicians from lying, pundits from spinning the facts, or journalists from missing a qualifier about our work. Nor, quite obviously, can we prevent external web pages which don't use our live-updating web counters from carrying out-dated IBC data. But we do at least try not to misunderstand or misrepresent it ourselves, and use careful phrasing in our communications and interviews to avert this where possible. The same cannot be said of some of our critics, as we have shown.
One example of the failure of our critics to check their facts comes in recent bouts of self-congratulation in which they take credit for "concessions" forced from IBC in the wording of our website and web counters "begrudgingly" emphasising that our numbers refer to reported civilian deaths. In fact the features they refer to have all been in place, unchanged, since 2003 and 2004.
Another example of failure to check basic facts comes in defamatory insinuations that we do not use non-Western or "Iraqi/Arab" media sources because of racist bias that means we don't consider them "credible". Yet even a quick glance at our sources list reveals that we use many English-language versions of non-Western media sources on the Web. (Perhaps our critics have failed to notice that even relatively small non-Western media communicate regularly and effectively in English.)
A disturbing lack of care also infects the tactics and goals of Media Lens and its allies. It is "remarkable" indeed that IBC, the only organisation providing a continuing tally of Iraqi deaths, should be targeted and pressured to cease operation by members of a pressure group which aligns itself with the peace movement, just as post-war violence reaches unprecedented levels.
The purpose of this article has largely been to dispel myths and rumours fed by a misconceived campaign that cannot countenance the possibility that a media-based project like IBC's could provide anything but a distortion of reality, rather than — as a more sensible assessment might have it — a valuable if incomplete insight into it. We earlier summed up the scope of that insight in a few brief words in a presentation given to fellow researchers into conflict-related mortality and estimation methods:
Assuming even the most pessimistic outturn for violent civilian deaths, our database must include a substantial proportion of all victims, certainly not less than 25%, probably significantly more than half.
John Sloboda and Hamit Dardagan, "On Iraq Body Count", Section 6.0.
There is some value in integrating incomplete or imprecise information from a variety of sources. For the moment, that is the best that can be done. But this is no substitute for the properly funded, original research that will be required to arrive at a full accounting of the human cost of the "military solution" for Iraq. If the deaths of the victims of 9-11 can be honoured by the most complete listing possible, then why not the deaths of the victims of the Iraq war?
In the meantime, pointing to differences between the existing inadequate studies in order to assert the superiority of one method and one study over others is the least productive activity that can take place.
When fundamental flaws in our analyses or interpretations are brought to our attention, we do, of course, attempt to prioritise their correction. However, we have demonstrated in this article that our critics have established no serious errors which require the kind of urgent action which they demand. Nor does anything we have done merit the charge that we are "amateurs", a charge that has been freely broadcast in an attempt to discredit our work and the individual members of our team. The details of these further unsavoury developments are footnoted for those who care to track them.
We will continue to improve our web site, as and when we are able, and taking into account all valid criticism. But we will not do this based on the priorities and timescale demanded by uninformed and histrionic critics.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/editorial/defended/5.phpA couple years ago, it was the Lancet publishing inflated figure. Now we have your study being making suspicious claims using the same methodology.
