statistics

Operation Iraqi Invasion, By the Numbers
By Jackson Thoreau

NOTE: This is a variation of a question-and-answer piece on the relationship between Iraq, the U.S., Europe, and military campaigns circulating through cyberspace. I set it up as an easier-to-read numerical column and added a few items of my own. The numbers speak for themselves.

Percentage of the world's population living in the U.S.: 6.

Percentage of the world's energy resources used in the U.S.: 30.

Rank of Iraq among countries in the world for the largest oil reserves: 2 [behind Saudi Arabia].


Military spending, worldwide: $900 billion.

Percentage of worldwide military spending by U.S.: 50.

Percentage of worldwide military spending by Iraq: 0.0015.


Percentage of Iraq's military capacity U.S. claimed it destroyed in 1991 Persian Gulf War: 80.

Percentage of Iraq's post-1991 capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction the UN claimed to have discovered and dismantled by 1998: 90.

Percentage of U.S. military spending that would ensure basic necessities to everyone in the world: 10.


Number of Americans who have died in wars since World War II: 92,212.

Number of people living outside U.S. who have died in wars since World War II: 25 million.


Years that Iraq has had chemical and biological weapons: 20.

Number of U.S. and European corporations that supplied Iraq with materials and knowledge to make chemical and biological weapons since the early 1980s: 150.

Number of Western nations that condemned Saddam Hussein in 1988 immediately after he used gas in the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988 to kill an estimated 5,000 people: 0.

Number of pounds of Agent Orange and other herbicides U.S. dropped in the Vietnam War: 100 million.


Value of worldwide weapons trade: $800 billion.

Percentage of weapons dealt by U.S. companies worldwide: 50.


Estimated number of Iraqi civilian deaths in the 1991 Persian Gulf War: 35,000.

Estimated number of retreating Iraqi soldiers buried alive by U.S. tanks in 1991 war: 6,000.

Estimated number of Iraqi civilian deaths Pentagon predicted in the 2003 war: 10,000.

Estimated number of Iraqi civilian casualties in the 2003 war so far: 800.

Percentage of Iraqi civilian deaths that are children: 50.


Tons of depleted uranium left in Iraq and Kuwait after the 1991 Gulf War: 40.

Percentage increase in cancer rates in Iraq between 1991 and 1994: 700.


Number of years the U.S. has engaged in air strikes on Iraq: 12

Pounds of explosives U.S.-led coalition dropped on Iraq in 1991 Persian Gulf War: 177 million.

Pounds of explosives U.S.-British pilots dropped on Iraq between December 1998 and September 1999: 20 million.

Estimated pounds of explosives U.S.-British pilots have dropped on Iraq since the start of Operation Iraqi Invasion in March 2003: 200 million.


Years Iraq has lived under economic sanctions imposed by the UN: 12.

Iraqi child death rate in 1989 [per 1,000 births]: 30.

Iraqi child death rate in 1999 [per 1,000 births]: 131.

Number of Iraqis estimated to have died through 1999 due to UN sanctions: 1.5 million.

Percentage of them children: 50.


Number of UN weapons inspections conducted in Iraq in November-December 1998: 300.

Number of those inspections with problems: 5.

Number of UN weapons inspections conducted in Iraq in 2003: 500.

Number of UN resolutions Israel violated through 1992: More than 65.

Number of UN resolutions on Israel that U.S. vetoed between 1972 and 1990: More than 30.

Number of UN weapons inspections Israel has ever allowed: 0.


Number of nuclear warheads U.S. has: More than 10,000.

Number of nuclear warheads Israel has: More than 400.

Number of nuclear warheads Iraq has: 0.


Number of countries known to have nuclear weapons: 8.

Number of countries that have used nuclear weapons on another country: One [ the U.S.].