How many Iraqis died in the Gulf War?

Iraqi deaths and wounded

Some analysts agree the Iraqi death toll was well below initial post-war estimates. In the immediate aftermath of the war, these estimates ranged as high as 100,000 Iraqi troops killed and 300,000 wounded. For example, a report commissioned by the U.S. Air Force; (1993-ISBN 0-16-041950-6), "Gulf War Air Power Survey" by Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, estimated 10-12,000 Iraqi combat deaths in the air campaign and as many as 10,000 casualties in the ground war. This analysis is based on enemy prisoner of war reports. The Iraqi government claimed that 2,300 civilians died during the air campaign, most of them during an F-117 Stealth Fighter strike on what was believed to be an Iraqi military communications center in Baghdad (it turned out to be an air raid shelter).

One infamous incident during the war highlighted the question of large-scale Iraqi combat deaths. This was the “bulldozer assault”, wherein two brigades from the 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized) used anti-mine plows mounted on tanks and combat earthmovers to bury Iraqi soldiers defending the fortified "Saddam Line." While approximately 2,000 of the troops surrendered, escaping burial, one newspaper story reported that the U.S. commanders estimated thousands of Iraqi soldiers had been buried alive during the two-day assault February 24-25, 1991. However, like all other troop estimates made during the war, the estimated 8,000 Iraqi defenders was probably greatly inflated. While one commander, Col. Anthony Moreno of the 2nd Brigade, thought the numbers might have been in the thousands, another reported his brigade buried between 80 and 250 Iraqis. After the war, the Iraqi government claimed to have found 44 such bodies. It may have been in the interests of both sides to claim lower figures.

Other independent reports state significant higher figures. Beth Osborne Daponte’s report for the US Commerce Department’s Census Bureau of Foreign Countries update, estimated 86,000 men, 39,000 women, and 32,000 children killed by Allied Forces. Controversially, she was reprimanded and her report reissued with reduced figures including the omission of women and children deaths. Since the original report she has published more studies that have put the estimate to around 200,000 deaths

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