Out-of-whackness denounced

Prime Minister John Howard reacts to the new Lancet study of mortality in post-invasion Iraq:

John Howard: Well, I don’t believe that John Hopkins research, I don’t. It’s not plausible, it’s not based on anything other than a house-to-house survey. I think that’s absolutely precarious.

It is a ... an unbelievably large number and it’s out of whack with most of the other assessments that have been made.

So the problem seems to be that the Lancet study is “out of whack with most of the other assessments”. The interviewing journo either wasn’t competent or didn’t bother to press the PM on the reasons for the apparent out-of-whackness, namely, differing time-frames, methodologies, etc.

I can’t imagine what the PM’s problem with house-to-house surveys might be. Perhaps it’s the association with ordinary people that alarms him.

More importantly, Mr Howard is clearly quite ignorant of the fact that the main assessment usually cited, the UNDP Iraq Living Conditions Survey 2004, was based on a house-to-house survey.