Des Moines Register
07-03-06
Civilians are safer in Iraq than in D.C., King says
His words have stirred a tempest online and on the radio, with critics and champions voicing their opinions.
JANE NORMAN
REGISTER WASHINGTON BUREAU
Twice on the floor of the U.S. House, Rep. Steve King of Iowa has argued that it's more dangerous for a civilian to live in Washington, D.C., than in Iraq.
King, a Republican from Kiron who strongly supports the war, said the rate of violent death for civilians also is higher in the countries of Venezuela, Jamaica and Colombia - and the cities of Detroit and New Orleans.
His statements, also aired on Fox News and aimed at countering those who believe the United States should withdraw from Iraq, have rocketed around the
Internet and talk radio. They've drawn a torrent of criticism, comments and analysis everywhere, from Rush Limbaugh to Wonkette to the Wall Street
Journal.
The lightning speed at which the Internet spreads information has further boosted the congressman's national reputation as a provocative conservative, just four years after he was elected to represent western Iowa.
While the news is filled every day with bombings and casualties in Iraq, King said he has computed the civilian violent death rate there at 27.51 per 100,000 population.
"Now, what does that mean? And to me, it really does not mean a lot until I compare it to places that I know, where I have a feel for the rhythm of this place,"
King said on the House floor.
"Well, by now I have a feel for the rhythm of this place called Washington, D.C., and my wife lives here with me," he said. "I can tell you, she is in far greater risk being a civilian in Washington, D.C., than an average civilian in Iraq."
Comparisons challenged
As for the statistical validity of King's statements, "it's a reach," said Mack
Shelley, a professor of statistics at Iowa State University . "I think it would also be appropriate to say it's not a scientifically based comparison," he said.

One problem is trying to draw a direct comparison between a nation of 26.7 million and a city-state such as the District of Columbia with a population of
550,000, Shelley said. A random sampling of each area, with controls for differences, would be preferable, he said, though "it would be a messy undertaking at best."
King, who has visited Iraq, said he is concerned that the American public will begin to feel there is such a level of violence in Iraq that a U.S. presence there is not sustainable. Debate is raging over whether the United States should pull out.
"But instead, I will submit that we are being treated with a relentless drumbeat of television violence in Iraq," King said.
"Even though it is honestly represented in those significant instances, we don't have our television cameras lined up here in the emergency rooms in
Washington, D.C., or Detroit or Baltimore or New Orleans or Atlanta or St. Louis," he said.
King's statistics
King said that with the help of the Congressional Research Service and a Web site that tracks Iraqi deaths, he and his staff compiled statistics on how many civilians per 100,000 in Iraq die a violent death. He said he did not include police
- because they are involved in combat - and other members of the Iraqi military.
In Washington, known more for monuments and tourists than IEDs and armored cars, the death rate was 45 per 100,000 in 2003. In New Orleans, the rate was
53 per 100,000, he said, and in Detroit it was 41.8.
Colombia's violent death rate was 61.7, South Africa's was 49.6 and Venezuela's was 31.6, he said. The United States' is about 4.2.
King said he did not have the ability to break out figures for Baghdad, where much of the violence in Iraq has occurred, and which would provide a city-to-city comparison.
Think tank's numbers
The Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, in its regularly updated "Iraq
Index" has a chart of crime-related deaths in Baghdad since May 2003, representing the number of bodies brought to the Baghdad morgue with mortal gunshot wounds.
Brookings arrived at a Baghdad violent death rate of 100 per 100,000, as of May, but cautioned that "our estimates could be too high as some of the gunshot victims may be insurgents killed intentionally by the U.S. military, or too low since

many murder victims are never taken to the morgue but buried quickly and privately and therefore never recorded in official tallies."
Brookings also noted that the homicide rate for Washington in 2005 was 35 per
100,000, down from the 2003 rate quoted by King.
Des Moines had six murders in 2005, which would give it a rate of about three murders per 100,000 residents.
Online debate
King's comparisons have produced attacks and acclaim. Bloggers across the
Internet have tackled King and his home state, drawing at times hundreds of comments. "Steve King is a doofus from a particularly backward part of Iowa," wrote a critic on AMERICAblog.com.
"I think this is the proof in the pudding that the media is overblowing the violence occurring in Iraq," wrote a King supporter on a forum devoted to discussing the
Drudge Report.
The Web site for the Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial page poked at
King's numbers. It said he was underestimating civilian deaths by not including policemen and soldiers, and concluded that King had "painted a misleadingly
Pollyannaish picture of Iraq, and that's the wrong way to counter the liberal media's misleadingly Cassandrian one."
Dale McFeatters, a Washington-based columnist for Scripps-Howard newspapers, wrote that "really, the capital couldn't be all that dangerous, because the congressman's Web site says his office will gladly arrange tours of
Washington for visiting constituents. It would be dubious politics to let a visiting group of Council Bluffs schoolchildren wander into insurgent cross-fire on their way to the Lincoln Memorial."
But Limbaugh said on his radio show: "So Iraq, I mean, if you're just going to roll the dice and take your chances, Iraq's a much safer place to go than Washington or Jamaica or New Orleans pre-Katrina, or Venezuela."
Views from D.C.
Dave Garrison, who works on Washington policy issues at the Brookings
Institution and lives on Capitol Hill not far from King, said he does not feel unsafe.
"Most of us who have lived on the Hill for a long period of time find it a quite comfortable and safe neighborhood," he said. "It's a lovely neighborhood, largely of single-family row houses."

On the other hand, Garrison said, "there are neighborhoods in the city where safety is a significant issue, though I am not sure I would go so far as to say neighborhoods where crime is high are similar to Baghdad."
Vince Morris, press secretary to District of Columbia Mayor Anthony Williams, called King's comments "ludicrous."
"I think if you asked any right-thinking person in this city, not in a million years would they trade Pennsylvania Avenue for the area outside the Green Zone in
Baghdad," said Morris.
But King said in an interview that his wife, Marilyn, had a close encounter with the uglier side of Washington.
While walking to their Capitol Hill home one night, she was followed by a man who "made a whole series of vile remarks and threats to her," he said.
She made it into their home unscathed, but "it was spooky," King said. They did not report the incident to police.
Challenger's response
Joyce Schulte of Creston, the Democrat who is challenging King for his Fifth
District seat, said she is familiar with Iraq-Washington comparisons made by
King and the online tempest they have stirred.
While she said she likely would take more precautions in Washington than in
Creston, she's not worried while visiting there, she said.
"I've been in quite a number of parts of the District," she said. "The times I've been there, and walked the streets day and night, I have not had the huge sense of violence right around me."
She also asked whether King had bought his wife a plane ticket to Iraq. "As a spouse, if somebody is telling me I'd be safer in one place than another, I guess
I'd want to go to wherever that safer place is," Schulte said.
King said that his remarks have produced a deluge of telephone calls and emails to his Washington office.
"People will call and they're just angry, they'll say that can't be true," he said.
"Then my staff will tell them, here's where the statistics came from and this is the best information available out there. We didn't present it to be the absolute truth, we just present it as the best information we can find."

He added: "It's good in America when people have debate and discussion." test