The Book of Sifty

Some lists.. what to do without a telly 10:07AM

One popular argument for war in Iraq was the number of his own people Saddam Killed. Now I'm not trying to justify this in anyway. He killed a lot of people.
He was nasty piece of work, and he didn't treat his people very well. Still here is an interesting fact I found the other week:

Ten world leaders responsible for mass killing directly above Saddam Hussein, based on estimated civilian casualties (NZ Listener March 22)

1. Jean Kambanda (Rwanda, 1994) 800,000


2. Richard Nixon (Vietnam, 1969- 1974) 700,000


3. Suharto (East Timor 1976-98) 600,000


4. Yahya Khan (Pakistan, 1971, v Bangladesh) 500,000


5. Savimbi (Angola, 1975- 2002) 400,000


6. Idi Amin (Uganda, 1969-1979) 300,000


7. Lydon Johnson (Vietnam, 1963- 1968) 300,000


8. Charles Taylor (Liberia, 1989- 1996) 220,000


9. Foday Sankoh (Sierra Leone, (1991 ' 2000) 200,000


10. Michel Micombero (Burundi, 1972) 150,000


11. Saddam Hessein, (1987-88) 100,000

Okay of course there are a couple of obvious people way above this list. But it is interesting to put this argument in perspective, especially considering these are number of civilian casualties, and doesn't include the number of soliders killed. Also note how long some of these people have stretched the loss of life, and how little you've heard about these places i.e. there was no huge international mission for 'regime change' in these places, probably since they have no oil.

Another popular argument was that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction poised and ready to annihilate the tens of thousands of people. How did the coalition of the willing know this? Well probably since they supplied Iraq with them.

Ten Nations named in Iraq's weapons declaration dossier* as having supplied arms or materials for arms programmes (with number of participating arms corporations in brackets.

1. USA (24)
   
2. China (3)
   
3. France (8)
   
4. Great Britain (17)
   
5. Russia (6)
   
6. Japan (5)
   
7. Netherlands (3)
   
8. Belgium (7)
   
9. Spain (3)
   
10. Sweden (2)
    

And lastly just some stats.

Ten items from 'The shape of World War IV, by number', by Toronto Star columnist Vinay Menon

1. 77: Percentage of Americans who support military action against any country believed to be linked to 9/11 terrorist attacks, even if innocent civilians are killed in those countries.
   
2. 69: Percentage of Americans in a 2002 poll, who said they believe Iraq has Nuclear Weapons.
   
3. 0: Number of nuclear weapons in Iraq.
   
4. $US850 billion: estimated military spending in the world in 2002.
   
5. 50: Percentage spent by US
   
6. 0.0015: Percentage spent by Iraq
   
7. 320: Amount in metric tonnes of depleted uranium left in region after 1991 Gulf War.
   
8. 200,000: Estimated number of US soldiers said to be suffering from Gulf War Syndrome.
   
9. 700: Percentage in crease in cancer rates in Iraq between 1991 and 94
   
10. $US750,000: unit cost of one Tomohawk cruise missile.