To: TimF who wrote (2603 ) 2/3/2004 10:53:25 PM From: tejek Read Replies (1) | Respond to The above statement is not true either as a per bomb amount or per average. I don't have stats for the tonnage of bombs dropped on Iraq in the recent fighting but it was almost 90,000 in the first war. The bombing campaign was longer then so its actually likely to be less then the first war, it might be a lot less but I'll just guess 20,000, it could be more but I'll err on the side that supports your case. The most common size bomb we used is probably 500 lbs. But to increase the deaths per bomb figure and strengthen your case I'll says 1,000 lbs is the average bomb. That means something like 20k bombs where dropped (and its more likely to be more then that number then it is to be less). Assuming your earlier figures as accurate its 5000 to 10000 civilian deaths. Many of them might have been killed by Iraqis, at least some labled as civilians could be terrorists or bandits, and not all of the civilians killed by Americans were killed by bombs but to strengthen your argument I take the higher number of deaths and assume they were all innocent civilians killed by American bombs. So you get .5 average innocent civilian deaths per bomb dropped not scores. And, of course, nitpicking manages to cloud the real issue which is that over 10k Iraqis were killed with Shock and Awe. "3 - The number that would have been killed by the continuation of Saddam's rule and by the negative effects of sanctions is probably higher then the number killed by "Shock and Awe"."
