Quagmiristas

Jay Manifold’s weekly Quagmire Watch is up. I particularly liked this bit:

Medact, the British affiliate of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, this week published a report that estimates the number of Iraqi civilian deaths during the invasion to range from 5,708 to 7,356. The report estimates that the number of civilian deaths after May 1, when Bush declared an end to major combat operations, ranges from 2,049 to 2,209.

Rereading this post from exactly one year ago today, we find that Medact’s pre-war casualty estimate was … wait for it … half a million.

Their undoubtedly manipulated “actual” total is, at most, 9,565.

Hint to my fellow citizens: maybe special-interest groups who make predictions that are off by a factor of 50 can’t be trusted.

As Instantman would say…indeed.