Goodman of Globe Recycles Iraqi Civilian Death Canard

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” - Winston Churchill

In the course of a Boston Globe column today in which she calls for a referendum in Iraq as to whether the US stays or goes, Ellen Goodman writes:

"Today we have nearly 3,000 American deaths, and by one estimate 650,000 Iraqi deaths."

Ever the environmentalist, Goodman dutifully recycles the findings of a report published in the Lancet magazine on civilian deaths in Iraq. This study, prepared by two anti-war partisans, has - as I noted here back in October - been thoroughly debunked. See more recently this piece which among other things quotes "Hot Air" thusly:

"The Lancet study would have us believe that 2.5% of Iraq has been killed by the war in the past three years. It would have us believe that more Iraqis have died as a result of a mid-sized insurgency than Americans died in World War II. Or the Civil War. Or Germans, who died in World War II, fighting against the combined might of the USSR, the British Empire and the United States, at a time when Germany was reduced to conscripting young boys and old men to resist those armies as they approached Berlin.

So, yes, 650,000 Iraqis have died "by one estimate." But does Goodman believe it's the most accurate estimate? If not, why does she cite it, and what does it tell us about her good faith and credibilty? For that matter, what does it tell us about her credibility if she does believe it?

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Finkelstein recently returned from Iraq. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net