View From a Height

Making Numbers Lie

Our friends over at the RMPN are once again demonstrating their ability to use the subtraction, addition's tricky friend, even as their post claiming that "These Numbers Don't Lie," um, lies.

Conflict-related civilian deaths in Iraq. July 2004 to January 2005
3,274 civilians killed in total
2,041 by coalition and Iraqi security forces
1,233 by insurgents

12,657 civilians wounded in total
8,542 by coalition and Iraqi security forces
4,115 by insurgents

They draw their numbers from the BBC, quoting official Iraqi government statistics.

Except that the BBC report now states,

Today, the Iraqi Ministry of Health has issued a statement clarifying matters that were the subject of several conversations with the BBC before the report was published....

It states that those recorded as killed in military action included Iraqis killed by terrorists, not only those killed by Coalition forces or Iraqi security forces; and that those recorded as killed in military action included terrorists themselves, and Iraqi security forces.

The BBC regrets mistakes in its published and broadcast reports yesterday.

For the record. The BBC page was updated at Saturday, 29 January, 2005, 11:19 GMT, while the original RMPN posting was at January 29, 2005 07:58 AM, Mountain Time, or 14:58 GMT.

It's quite an achievement to be less reliable that the Beeb.

For the Democrats' sake, let's hope their budget calculations are little more reliable.

Hat Tip: Best Destiny.