With a violent death rate that matches Iraq’s, this New Orleans protester is looking for answers.
New Orleans residents march towards City Hall during a protest against violent crimes in New Orleans, Louisiana January 11, 2007. (Reuters)
Last night it was reported on FOX News that 80% of the violence and violent death in Iraq occurs in and around Baghdad.
Baghdad has a population somewhere around 7,000,000. In 2003 the governorate (or province) of Baghdad had a population estimated at 6,400,400.. Iraq has a population of 26,074,906.
What this means:
1-) First of all, Iraq the country has a lower violent death rate than many US cities have had.
From the 2006 numbers, BizzyBlog reported:
Iraq’s violent death rate in 2006 was 56.49 per 100,000 residents.
Compare that to these US cities:The murder rates were as follows (see related graph at UPDATE 2 below):
1. New York City – 1990; 30.7 (2,245 murders; population 7,322,000)
2. Washington, DC – 1991; 83.1 (482 murders; population 598,000 [1])
3. Gary, IN – 2005; 58.0
4. Detroit, MI – 1991; roughly 60
5. Compton, CA – 2005; 67.1
6. New Orleans, LA – 2006; 67.5 (154 murders; population 228,000 [2])
7. New Orleans, LA – 2004; 59.6 (275 murders; population 461,115 [3])
8. New Orleans, LA – 2003; 57.7
9. Atlanta, GA – 1973; 57.7 (271 murders; population 470,000 [1])
10. E. St. Louis, IL – 2004; 63.4
Hopeless quagmire, or not?
(Bizzyblog graphed these results!)
2-) Obviously, Baghdad Province is very violent.
With the official counts on violent death in 2006 in Iraq at 16,273, unofficial counts slightly higher at 22,950, this means that Baghdad has a violent death rate of 186 violent deaths per 100,000.
(13,018/7,000,000 x 100,000)
The country of Uganda has a comparable violent death rate at 152 per 100,000.
3-) The rest of Iraq then has a violent death rate at 17 per 100,000. This is below major US Cities!
(3,254/19,074,000 x 100,000)
This is less than half the rate of these major US cities including:
Detroit – 41.8 per 100,000
Baltimore – 37.7 per 100,000
Atlanta – 34.9 per 100,000
St. Louis – 31.4 per 100,000
And, even Washington DC – 45 per 100,000
Politicians ought to chew on that a while before they open up their yaps.
