John Hopkins University Does It Again

They have once again pulled numbers out of thin air. The new operative truth (pdf file) is that roughly 655,000 Iraqis have now died that otherwise wouldn’t have died if the U.S. had not invaded.
Rick Moran at redstate.com provides a better rebuttal than I could, so I suggest you head on over there to read about the flaws and incredible leaps of faith one has to take to come to the 600,000 figure.
Here is what the left and America’s enemies will do with this manufactured attempt of an October Surprise:
* They’ll accept the “study” without question. Nevermind the fact that the it included such things as heart disease and made no effort to distinguish whether or not that those who died were really civilians or not.
* Questioning the “study” will be labeled as “partisan”.
* In support of the “study”, the appeal to authority will be used liberally. How dare anybody criticize or even question John Hopkins University. The irony of not being able to question authority will be lost on those who consistently question and criticize President Bush.
Update: This study isn’t even close to being believable.
Did they take into account those who would have died if Saddam had stayed in power? By conservative estimates that guy was killing 25,000/year through civilian executions alone, not to mention those dying because they lacked food or adequate medical care.
Are we really supposed to believe that 600,000+ additional Iraqis died as a result of the invasion of Iraq than would have died under Saddam’s cruel regime if we had done nothing? Was there any attempt at all to reconcile the numbers and subtract those who would have died anyway had Saddam been in power?
And why should America get the blame for all these deaths? Is it our fault that the terrorists attack Iraqi civilians in their attempts to overthrow the representative government established by the Iraqi people? Is it our fault that Iraqis die from undernourishment or disease/injury because the terrorists have impeded our efforts to build new hospitals and deliver food?
And where is the consideration for the idea that Iraq was an impoverished, oppressed nation for over two decades before we invaded? Shouldn’t some accounting be made for the idea that those conditions aren’t going to change overnight, or even in years? Economic and political change take time.
And what of the widely-respected Iraq Body Count site which, although run by a group of anti-war academics, none-the-less uses sound methodology in calculating its count of civilian casualties (which is currently at a maximum of 48,693)?
I think the Redstate post Likwid links above says it best:

…the political problem engendered by this pseudo-scientific hit piece is that the left will use this figure without any caveats and state flatly in their critiques of the war that 600,000 civilians have died as a result of our invasion. And by the time the study is once again debunked by those who know a helluva lot more about statistics and such than I, the lie will have taken hold and the myth will have been set in stone.
And the American people are treated to one more October surprise before casting their vote on November 7.