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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iraq
Index
Casualty figures in the Iran-Iraq War could not be estimated
accurately because neither belligerent permitted independent
observers to assist in verifying records, and both belligerents
rarely allowed foreign observers to visit combat areas. At the
end of 1986, the most frequently cited estimate of casualties
since September 1980 was about 1 million--350,000 dead and
650,000 wounded. According to this estimate, 250,000 Iranians and
100,000 Iraqis had been killed, while 500,000 Iranians and
150,000 Iraqis had been wounded. These estimates were probably
conservative. Another reliable source claimed that the combined
death toll was between 600,000 and 800,000. In 1987, the Iraqi
minister of defense reported that as many as 1 million Iranians
had been killed and almost 3 million had been wounded, but this
was impossible to verify. During large offensives, reports
indicated that casualty figures ranged between 10,000 and 40,000,
primarily because of Iran's "human wave" tactics. The impact of
this loss of life on both societies was immense as was that of
the high number of prisoners of war (POWs). The Geneva-based
International Committee of the Red Cross estimated the number of
POWs at nearly 50,000 Iraqis and 10,000 Iranians in early 1988.
For Iraq, the most damaging social repercussion in 1988 was
the knowledge that the toll in casualties would continue to
increase. Drafting young men, and at times women, from school and
from work became unpopular, and the loss of young life weakened
the regime. This human drain also created shortages in the labor
force. These shortages forced an integration of women into the
work force, a move that further disrupted Iraq's traditional
social environment.
The war also forced cutbacks in Iraq's economic development,
and it wiped out the relative prosperity of the late 1970s.
Individuals were pressured to donate savings and gold holdings to
the war effort. Experts believed in 1988 that these hardships,
endured from 1980 onward, would gradually erode what social
cohesion and progress had been achieved over the previous decade,
should the war continue for a few more years.
Opposition to the war continued to grow. There were sporadic
attempts on the lives of military officers, and especially on the
lives of Saddam Hussayn's relatives. As funerals in every
neighborhood reminded the masses of the realities they faced,
Iraqi morale continued to diminish.
Data as of May 1988
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