Operation Iraq Invasion,
By the Numbers
April 3, 2003
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 |
| 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 |
| 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 killed by U.S. forces 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: | 11 |
| 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 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: | Over 65 |
| Number of UN resolutions on Israel that U.S. vetoed between 1972 and 1990: | Over 30 |
| Number of UN weapons inspections Israel has ever allowed: | 0 |
| Number of nuclear warheads U.S. has: | Over 10,000 |
| Number of nuclear warheads Israel has: | Over 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: | 1 |