The following is an archived copy of a message sent to a Discussion List run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
Views expressed in this archived message are those of the author, not of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
[Main archive index/search] [List information] [Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq Homepage]
Good speech John!
> ... For forty days and nights, Iraq was subject to a merciless
> bombardment in which 150,000 – 200,000 Iraqis died...
Other figures that I've seen, comes from King's College London's Lawrence
Freedman and Efraim Karsh. Their book, The Gulf Conflict, 1990-1991:
diplomacy and war in the new world order (ISBN 0-691-03772-8; Princeton
University Press, 1993), was recommended to me as the best on the topic by
a former head of the Middle East Department of the FCO in the early 1970s
(late last year he had written a strong letter to the editor of one of the
dailies, observing that Britain seems never to learn from its mistakes in
the Arab world; he has been quite helpful in correspondence with me).
Before quoting, a word of explanation on the "projected number of Iraqi
soldiers in the theatre" [of war]: initial estimates of Iraqi troops
involved were based on a guess that Iraqi units were operating with a high
percentage of their soldiers present. Later estimates suggest that more
Iraqis did not join their units than originally expected.
I'll quote a few of the surrounding paragraphs as well (pp.408-9):
In just over 100 hours, coalition forces captured over 73,000
square kilometres of territory. Fifteen percent of Iraq was
under coalition control. The Iraqi Army which had been in
occupation had been effectively cut to pieces. No more than
seven of the original forty-three Iraqi divisions were capable
of operations. Coalition casualties were remarkably low -
almost as much damage had been done by 'friendly fire' as by
Iraqi fire. Almost a quarter of the American deaths and more
than half the British had come in this form.[21] Another 138
were killed and 2,978 injured outside of battle, largely during
the preceding months of Desert Shield. Nonetheless, after all
the gloomy predictions of thousands of casualties, the total was
remarkably small.
On the Iraqi side, calculations of casualties were impossible.
[Allied] CENTCOM had explicitly ruled out any 'body counts' which
had been both a distasteful and wholly misleading feature of the
Vietnam campaign. When pressed, a figure of 100,000 was plucked
out of the air, with a margin of error of 50 per cent, but that
was largely based on the fact that, compared to the projected
numbers of Iraqi soldiers in the theatre, only a relatively small
proportion had been accounted for as prisoners (64,000 were taken
by the US, 17,000 by the Arab forces and 5,000 by the British). A
year later revised estimates were as low as 10,000, largely
because the evidence of mass death was slight and the numbers of
Iraqi troops in the theatre had been dramatically reduced.
The Iraqis gave only one estimate, of 20,000 killed (of which
about 1,000 then were civilians) and 60,000 wounded after twenty-six
days of the air war. There is no reason to doubt this. Inter-
rogation of prisoners revealed that in some units desertions ex-
ceeded casualties by ten to one, while casualties as a result of
the bombing varied between 100 and 400 per division, which
suggests another 4,000 dead. It is probable that at most another
10,000 died during the land war, making up to 35,000 in total,
though this is based largely on circumstantial evidence. Despite
the horrific images, most of the vehicles on the 'highway of
death' were empty, and through there were other such highways
the total casualties in these attacks were probably measured in
hundreds rather than thousands.[22] There were no mass graves or
large numbers of bodies. One report suggests that the Saudis
buried 5,000 Iraqis.[23] However, the US said in late March that
444 Iraqi soldiers had been buried at fifty-five sites. The
number reached 577 in June. Reporters asking around Iraqi
villages found little evidence of a massive loss of young men,
and the Iraqi health service was not inundated with dead and
wounded.[24]
Notes
[21] Triumph Without Victory, p. 373. Eleven more Americans were killed
when unexploded allied ordnance blew up on them, and a further eighteen
were killed by unexploded enemy ordnance.
[22] Anthony Cordesman, 'Rush to Judgement in the Gulf War', Armed Forces
Journal International, June 1991.
[23] Dannreuther, The Gulf Conflict, p.57.
[24] International Herald Tribune, 2-3 March, 18 March, 24 June 1991, 16
January 1992. Patrick Cockburn, 'Lower Death Toll Helped Saddam',
Independent, 5 February 1992.
Colin Rowat
Coordinator, Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq
http://linux.clare.cam.ac.uk/casi
King's College
Cambridge CB2 1ST tel: +44 (0)468 056 984
England fax: +44 (0)1223 335 219
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a discussion list run by Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
To be removed/added, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk, NOT the
whole list. Archived at http://linux.clare.cam.ac.uk/~saw27/casi/discuss.html
[ARCHIVE NOTE: the word "1,000" from the phrase "of which about 1,000
then were civilians" was accidentally ommited by the message poster, and
inserted into this archived version on his request on 16 Jan 2001.]