Have you heard the canard about Iraq being safer than Washington, DC? It's brought to you by the same people who brought you tales of Saddam mushroom clouds and Iraqi stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Specifically, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) made the claim that Iraq is safer than Washington, DC, Detroit, New Orleans, and other U.S. hotbeds of crime. Blogs too numerous to list have repeated this falsehood. In the same month that King made this prepostrous claim, the Baghdad morgue received the bodies of 1,398 civilians. On Monday, kidnappers snatched 50 people in Baghdad. On Tuesday, Iraqi police found nine human heads in Hadid. Also on Tuesday, a local Baghdad politician was assassinated. Remember anything like this happening in DC this year, let alone this week? File Congressman King's claim under: truth is the first casualty of war.

To be fair they might have been referring to americans in the area. Although I agree it is a distortion because serviceman wandering around Iraq are not the same category of people as "random citizens of DC". The statistics themselves are probably accurately done, but they make that fatal assumption.

A similar statistic existed in the past about sailors having a lower mortality rate than citizens of some city (i forget which) and a comparison of the numbers, and then the claim that you were safer in the navy.

Its bunk because you can't compare the two samples, but the numbers are accurate enough.

King was actually comparing the mortality rate of humans in Iraq to the mortality rate of cattle and pigs in Iowa for the same time period. Iowa is a very dangerous place for cattle and pigs.

Jason: I think Dan is refering to comparable populations-- random, nonmilitary people in DC and in Bagdad. Right? (And if we count military deaths in both areas, then DC is only more safe by a higher percentage.)

I don't see how King's claim can be accurate at all.

The figure is factual, it refers to number dead per 100,000 citizens. More people are killed per 100,000 in Washington D.C than Baghdad.

It is however, not a very good statistic, because Baghdad is simply much much larger than D.C.

The best statistic to use would be Iraqis in post-Saddam Iraq vs. Iraqis under Saddam. That particular statistic shows that without Saddam in power Iraqis are five times less likely to be killed, with an average civilian death rate of 13 a day in modern Iraq, and 70 a day under Saddam.

http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=3652

http://www.gbn.com/ArticleDisplayServlet.srv?aid=2400&msp=1242

Ben T: You are making a claim that is even more outlandish than the Congressman's. The Congressman said that Iraq--not Baghdad--is safer than DC. That may be apples and oranges, but that's his comparison. Your comparison that Baghdad is safer than DC is even more of a fiction. Baghdad is about ten times more populous than DC. Yet, in May alone, its morgue processed "1,398 civilians killed in shooting attacks and other violent crimes." Note that not everybody goes to the morgue when they die violently, and that those statistics exclude Iraqi and U.S. servicemen. Note also that for DC's violent death rate to exceed just the figures from Badhdad's morgue, then more than 140 people would have had to die violently in DC in May. Ben, I live in DC, and even during the crack wars of the '80s and early '90s--when I thankfully didn't live in DC--DC never had a month that horrific. To put things in perspective, when DC regained its Murder Capital of America title in 2002, it had 262 murders. That's about 22 murders per month. Ben: do you major in fuzzy math?

The Wall Street Journal pinned down the source of all these numbers
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110008392

It is true that King was comparing the death rate from war in Iraq to the overall violent death rate in D. C. and was using 2002 data for D.C. rather than 2004. Even given those problems it is an interesting finding. Of course what is driving it is he is comparing all of Iraq (with many quiet spots) to one city. But doesn't D.C. want us to think of it as a state and shouldn't the comparison of state to state be the right one? The liberals want us to treat D.C. as a city when it suits their purposes (See http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2006/010606neoconlie.htm)