Iraq War Saves Iraqi Lives?

Via Ace, something at Say Anything that qualifies as fascinating if true:

According to figures from the CIA World Factbook there are roughly 864,588 live births in Iraq every year (about 31.44 for every 1,000 citizens). In 2003 there was an infant mortality rate in Iraq of 55.16 per 1,000 births, or about 47,690 infant deaths.

In 2006 that infant mortality rate has dropped to 48.64 deaths per 1,000 births. Or about 42,503 infant deaths/year. Or about 5,187 fewer dead infants every year than in 2003.

So is it safe to say that we’ve saved roughly (and these numbers are, admittedly, very rough) 15,000 infant lives since invading Iraq? I think that would be in the ballpark.

And just think of that. 15,000 lives saved.

The anti-war folks may be quick to respond to that number with talk about the approximate 62,570 Iraqi civilians who have died in Iraq since the invasion over four years ago, a number that works out to about 15,323 dead civilians a year, but I’d point out that fewer Iraqis are dying now in the violence in Iraq than were dying under Saddam’s cruel regime.

According to this article the Documental Centre for Human Rights in Iraq has compiled information on over 600,000 civilian executions in Iraq under Saddam Hussein’s regime. That’s probably low as its just the executions we know about and it doesn’t include those who died because Saddam diverted money from the UN’s humanitarian oil-for-food program into his own coffers, but we’ll use it anyway. If we consider that Saddam Hussein was in power for 24 years, those 600,000 executions puts his yearly death toll at about 25,000/year.

So even with a conservative estimate as to the number of civilian deaths under Saddam there are still 10,000 fewer civilian deaths in that country per year now.

I think these figures and the conclusions reached are very much open for criticism, and I, for one, think Rob Port may be wrong with his figures.

Let's use another set of figures that Port chose not to use, those that estimate the numbers of Iraqis and other local regional military and civilian lives killed as a result of Saddam's two elective wars, the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, and the 1990-91 Gulf War, to get a better idea of those casualties directly attributed to Saddam's regime prior to the 2003 invasion.

After all, it hardly seems fair to factor in Iraqi casualties that were a result of our 2003 invasion, without also factoring in casualty estimates that were a result of Saddam's invasions as well.

Wikipedia notes that roughly a half million Iranians, including Iranian soldiers, militiamen, and civilians were killed or wounded as a result of Saddam's first elective war, and Iraq suffered roughly 375,000 casualties to soldiers, militias and civilians.

Hard numbers are tough to come by and may never specifically be known, but for the sake of argument, let's estimate that of the 875,000 total casualties, that 25-percent were fatalities. This gives us a rough estimate of fatalities of 218,750 for this war.

Also worth noting are the number of deaths of Iraqis that can be linked to Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait and his 1991 expulsion.

Once again :Wikipedia notes that the estimates are imprecise, but that Iraqi's army probably suffered about 20,000 military casualties. The Wikipedia entry doesn't mention the Kuwaiti deaths that resulted from Saddam's invasion. I'll thrown out an even 1,000 for argument's sake, and will update if anyone can find an accurate source.

All told, combining these new figures with those compiled by Rob Port and cited above, means that Saddam is responsible for roughly 839,750 deaths, even when excluding all Coalition casualties that resulted in expelling Saddam's military from Kuwait in 1991 through today.

When combat deaths resulting from his elective wars are added to his civilian executions, Saddam was responsible for about 34,990 deaths/year during his reign, not 25,000 deaths/year.

This would apparently mean that there are far more than 10,000 military and civilian lives in the region being saved per year as result of our invasion, but those numbers are open to be challenged, due to my well known personal incompatibility with anything resembling math.