Operation Iraqi Invasion, By the Numbers

(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 to destroy 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 after he gassed the Kurdish town of Halabja, killing 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 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 raes in Iraq between 1991 and 1994: 700
• Number of years the U.S. has engaged in air strikes on Iraq: 26
• 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 as of 1999 due to UN sanctions: 1.5 million
• Percentage of them that were 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 against 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 to attack another country: 1