John Tirman writes that the WHO/IFHS study "found a sizable mortality figure—400,000 “excess deaths”..."

This is incorrect. No excess death figure was "found" or provided by IFHS. Simple extrapolations from the crude death rates supplied by IFHS should not be ascribed to IFHS in this way (for reasons made fairly clear by the IFHS authors - eg recall issues could lead to a spurious "excess" figure without "further analysis").

(The Medialens article, which echoes Tirman, is also incorrect to claim that the "excess mortality implied by [IFHS] is close to 400,000". IFHS does not "imply" such a figure, for the above reason. Note that the recalled death rate for the pre-war period was low compared to neighboring countries - the spurious component of the post-war rate increase could be substantial).

The direct comparison between Lancet 2006 and IFHS is as follows:

Lancet: 601,000 violent deaths
IFHS: 151,000 violent deaths

Some of the issues raised in the above-cited National Journal pieces are explored in depth in the following 50-page research paper by Professor Michael Spagat:

Ethical and Data-Integrity Problems in the Second Lancet Survey of Mortality in Iraq

February 2008

Abstract: I consider the second Lancet survey of mortality in Iraq published in 2006. I give evidence of ethical violations against the survey’s respondents including endangerment, privacy breeches and shortcomings in obtaining informed consent. Violations to minimal disclosure standards include non-disclosure of the survey’s questionnaire, data-entry form, data matching anonymized interviewer IDs with households and sample design. I present evidence suggesting data fabrication and falsification that falls into nine broad categories: 1) non-disclosure of key information; 2) implausible data on non-response rates and security-related failures to visit selected clusters; 3) evidence suggesting that the survey’s figure for violent deaths was extrapolated from two earlier surveys; 4) presence of a number of known risk factors for interviewer fabrication listed in a joint document of American Association for Public Opinion Research and the American Statistical Association; 5) a claimed field-work regime that seems impossible without field workers crossing ethical boundaries; 6) large discrepancies with other data sources on the total number of violent deaths and their distribution in time and space; 7) two particular clusters that appears to contain fabricated data; 8) irregular patterns suggestive of fabrication in claimed confirmations of violent deaths through death certificates and 9) persistent mishandling of other evidence on mortality in Iraq presented so as to suggest greater support for the survey’s findings from other evidence than is actually the case.

http://personal.rhul.ac.uk/uhte/014/Research.htm (Intro & supporting links)
http://personal.rhul.ac.uk/uhte/014/Standards.pdf (Paper - PDF file)

Tim Lambert has the following observations on Michael Spagat's recent work:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/02/spagat_goes_off_the_deep_end.php

In particular, Lambert notes of Spagat's approach: "doing this is dishonest cherry picking, especially when you are doing it to accuse researchers of fraud."

Also of likely interest to NASPIR members is the revised ORB figures reported here:

http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=88

They note: "we now estimate that the death toll between March 2003 and August 2007 is likely to have been of the order of 1,033,000. If one takes into account the margin of error associated with survey data of this nature then the estimated range is between 946,000 and 1,120,000."

I recommend that NASPIR members read the section of Professor Spagat's paper which deals with the sampling methodology of the Lancet 2006 study (starting p10). Note that in such surveys, randomness of sampling is all-important. http://personal.rhul.ac.uk/uhte/014/Standards.pdf

Sampling methodology is crucial also to the ORB poll. ORB effectively subcontracted the Iraq polling work to the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies. The person conducting the research, Munqeth Daghir, is reportedly a self-trained pollster who began his polling activities in 2003. Describing his early attempts at polling, Daghir says, "I knew that Baghdad is distributed into nine different areas, and how many citizens lived in each one. But to tell the truth, I didn't know anything about the real random systematic sample. We did it randomly by going to any house we wanted to go to. So it wasn't a perfect sample."
http://www.opinion.co.uk/Documents/Polling%20in%20Iraq.pdf

Will McLean comments: "ORB’s core competency seems to be the familiar western opinion survey by random phone interview. That isn’t actually very relevant to doing a cluster sample mortality survey in a war zone. And the survey work itself was done by an Iraqi firm, IIACSS, that didn’t exist before 2003, founded by an Iraqi with apparently only limited formal training in survey methodology." http://willscommonplacebook.blogspot.com/search/label/Iraq

ORB originally stated that their survey was based on “a nationally representative sample.” Later, they admitted that the survey was “undertaken in primarily urban locations”. Given that about a third of Iraqis live in rural areas, this is a significant omission, which ORB failed to disclose when the results were first published. The follow-up survey mentioned in an earlier post was conducted to correct this omission (after ORB received criticism on this point).

Another study that may be of interest to NASPIR members is Estimating mortality in civil conflicts: lessons from Iraq by Debarati Guha-Sapir and Olivier Degomme (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, Brussels):
http://www.cedat.be/Documents/Working_Papers/CREDWPIraqMortalityJune2007.pdf

Although it's several months old, it isn't well-publicised and will probably be new to many forum members. It's critical of the Lancet 2006 study, and estimates the "total war-related death toll for Iraq from the invasion until June 2006" at around 125,000. (Note: this is from prior to the release of the recent WHO study).

To preempt a certain type of comment, I should point out that due to its criticism of the Lancet study, the paper has already come to the attention of Tim Lambert's blog, which contains the following added comment: "the Guha-Sapir paper is RUBBISH.[...] 5 full pages of critisism of the Lancet paper. a single page on the IBC, with basically NO critisim at all. (missing some deaths in certain governates, but can use ITSELF (!!!) to correct the data..)" http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/02/spagat_goes_off_the_deep_end.php#comment-751438

A substantial article, 'Wartime estimates of Iraqi civilian casualties' by the renowned demographer, Beth Osborne Daponte, may be of interest to some of you. Daponte's credentials should impress even the most demanding credentialist (she produced the most authoritative mortality estimates for the first Gulf War, for which she was nearly fired by the US government).

She writes of the limitations of the different studies conducted, and is critical of the Lancet studies - to the extent that she excludes the Lancet findings from her conclusion, which is as follows:

"Perhaps the best that the public can be given is exactly what IBC provides – a running tally of deaths derived from knowledge about incidents. While imperfect, that knowledge, supplemented by the wealth of data of the Iraq Living Conditions Survey and Iraq Family Health Survey (which have their own limitations), provides enough information in the light of the circumstances. At a later date, additional surveys can be conducted to determine the impact and/or do demographic analysis. But for now, the Iraq Body Count’s imperfect figures combined with the date of the ILCS and IFHS may suffice."

http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/review-868-p943/$File/irrc-868_Daponte.pdf