STATISTICS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
This post was made at a time when a great many people were still in a jingoistic and triumphalist frame of mind about the "war" in Iraq, glorying in the coalition's easy victory and the "liberation" of the grateful people of Iraq (or at least, the ones who weren't among the five million dead - according to the UN - caused directly by the West's actions since the first Gulf War, whether economic sanctions or the tens of thousands of bombing raids conducted in the "peaceful" period between 1991 and the 2002 invasion. These casualties are approximately five times as many as the West's highest estimates of Saddam Hussein's murders of his own people in his 20-year reign).

Many of the posters justified the deaths of thousands/millions of innocent Iraqi civilians on "Christian" grounds, or on the basis that America was the world's good guy and therefore anything it did must automatically be right, or that they had it coming after September 11, 2001 (despite the lack of any known or implied connection between those events and the regime in Iraq). World opinion has subsequently come much closer to the interpretation of events presented here, but in December 2002 it was still quite an unpopular position. Up-to-the-minute versions of many of these stats can be found at www.iraqometer.com,

(originally posted Dec 2002)

For all our simple-minded redneck/Christian friends, the current FACTS.

(Sources for all statistics below: Pentagon, UK Ministry of Defence, Reuters, Standard Chartered Bank, United Nations)

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DEATHS

4,000+

(approx 2400 Iraqi troops, 1500 Iraqi civilians, 150 coalition forces, 10 journalists)

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INJURED

5,500

(Almost all Iraqi civilians, only injuries requiring hospitalisation counted)

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PREDICTED DEATHS IN IMMEDIATE FUTURE

250,000

(This is the number of Iraqis expected to die in the next three months as a result of the humanitarian crisis brought about by the invasion. It does not include figures for any deaths caused by, for example, the outbreak of a Shia Muslim/Sunni Muslim/Kurdish civil war, or by the sort of civil unrest and rioting of the last few days.

It is very hard to claim that had the war not taken place, Saddam Hussein's killing of his own people would have outstripped such figures. It seems highly doubtful that even the number of actual deaths so far would have been lower than the rate of Saddam's murders. Therefore it is very hard to justify the war as being for the benefit of the "liberated" Iraqi people, even before the shape of the replacement regime and the actual level of "freedom" it offers becomes apparent.

Also, these are of course "so far" figures. Deaths continue to happen in significant numbers hour by hour, and the possibility of a "last stand" by the regime in Tikrit still remains.)

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COST OF WAR TO DATE

$25.3bn

(This is the amount actually spent by the coalition so far. The figure is rising by approx $1.1bn every day. It's interesting to ponder, given the demonstrated extreme weakness of the Iraqi forces, how much of this sum would have been required to achieve the overthrow of the regime by arming and supporting its opponents. Of course, such a strategy would not have enabled the US to place its own commanders directly into the new administration.)

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SUM ALLOCATED BY U.S. TO WAR

$55bn

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SUM ALLOCATED BY US TO HUMANITARIAN AID

$275m

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SUM SPENT SO FAR ON BOMBS AND MISSILES USED

$1.2bn

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SUM ALLOCATED BY UK TO WAR

£3bn (approx $4.5bn)

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SUM ALLOCATED BY UK TO HUMANITARIAN AID

£240m (approx $360m)

(Interestingly, significantly higher than the US aid figure, despite the UK spending only 1/20 as much as the US on the military side.)

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VALUE TO US FIRMS OF CONTRACTS TO REBUILD IRAQ TO DATE

$4.5bn

(Almost all contracts so far awarded have gone exclusively to companies donating significant sums to the Republican party, most notably Halliburton, who still pay large sums to US Vice-President Dick Cheney as an employee.)

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ESTIMATED TOTAL COST OF REBUILDING IRAQ

$100bn

(Most of which can be expected to go to US companies.)

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TOTAL VALUE OF IRAQI OIL EXPORTS

$20bn/year

(Assuming full capacity, and at current price of $25/barrel. Iraq's "debt" to the coalition, therefore, will not be paid for many years.)

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NUMBER OF COALITION FORCES IN IRAQ

300,000

(Just under half are fighting troops. 100,000 more personnel are on the way from the US.)

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NUMBER OF DETAILED WEAPONS INSPECTIONS CARRIED OUT BY COALITION

Three in the last two weeks.

(Carried out independently of UN by special coalition military forces headed by former Unscom inspector Charles Duelfer. The number of informal "inspections" is obviously far higher. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has "pointedly reminded" the coalition that the UN retains the mandate to carry out weapons inspections.)

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NUMBER OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION DISCOVERED IN IRAQ TO DATE

Zero.

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Argue all you want. These are the FACTS, mostly supplied by official US sources. The picture is pretty clear. Was it worth having an illegally-elected US President destroy the whole concept of international law for? You decide.

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