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The quote doesn't indicate that it wouldn't swing the election. The quote indicates that the researcher's interest was blatantly political, which in turn suggests a political bias to the study.
If I had become convinced that a hidden massacre was going on, my second concern would be notifying the UN or world press in an attempt to stop it. Swaying an election in which both participants had a nearly identical policy to how to further manage Iraq? Low on my priority list.
100,000 in a country of 24,000,000 is 1 in 240. Who would kill that many, and how? Indiscriminate bombing has definitely happened -- mistakes were made -- just not THAT many.
That number of deaths would have been noticed before this guy made his excursion. Iraq is a violent place, sure, but is functioning as a society to the point where it can notice such things. Even the insurgency is sophisticated enough to notice and promote such things. They feed their own media, and once in a while ours, with their own propaganda. Civilian tragedy makes every news feed in the world. It would have been noticed.
And by the way, who risks their life to that level to bring back statistics? Doesn't the bare fact that he made the trip make you suspicious of his numbers?
And hey, on that point... isn't it ironic that his cover was blown multiple times as this blue-eyed westerner goes around collecting information, through what is apparently an unheard-of level of violence, and yet -- through the chaos of 1 in 240 killed -- he makes it out of the country somehow unscathed without protection from anyone but his translators? The mere fact that his head is not separate from his body is evidence contrary to his so-called "findings".
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