meta-roj

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Thursday, December 15, 2005

1000 days of war

the independent has done a bit of a retrospective on 1000 days of war in iraq, including a most interesting “by the numbers” summary. some numbers…

$204.4 billion The cost to the US of the war so far. The UK’s bill up until March 2005 was £3.1 billion
2, 339 Allied troops killed
98 UK troops killed
30, 000 Estimated Iraqi civilian deaths
0 Number of WMDs found
8 per cent of Iraqi children suffering acute malnutrition
$35,819m World Bank estimated cost of reconstruction
53,470 Iraqi insurgents killed
67 per cent Iraqis who feel less secure because of occupation
$343 Average monthly salary for an Iraqi soldier. Average monthly salary for an American soldier in Iraq: $4,160.75
66 journalists killed in Iraq. Journalists killed during Vietnam war: 63
5 foreign civilians kidnapped per month
47% Iraqis who never have enough electricity
20 casualties per month from unexploded mines
20% Inflation rate 2005
25-40 per cent Estimated unemployment rate, Nov 2005
251 Foreigners kidnapped
70 per cent of Iraqi’s whose sewage system rarely works
183,000 British and American troops are still in action in Iraq. There are 162,000 US troops and 8,000 British with 13,000 from other nations
90 Daily attacks by insurgents in Nov ’05. In Jun ’03: 8
82% Iraqis who are “strongly opposed” to presence of coalition troops
15,955 US troops wounded in action

and, to add some meta-roj-math to these numbers… just for some skewed perspective on the effort:

$686 cost of the war to date for each us resident
£51 cost of the war to date for each uk residentiraqi resident (£3.1b = us$5.5b)

$54.4 billion iraqi gdp

3.86 price-to-gdp ratio, to date.

also worth noting is that president bush thinks it’s about 30,000 dead iraqis. the independent has 30,000 dead civilians, plus another 53,470 insurgents, for a total of 83,470 dead iraqis. there are even other estimates – more like 100,000, maybe 194,000.

update (2005.12.15): i just noticed that there are deaths caused by “unexploded mines” in this report. i can only imagine how dangerous the exploded ones are.

posted by roj at 7:52 am