Here are 22 interesting Iraq War facts.
1-5 Iraq War Facts
1. A 2005 study found that men who were made to feel insecure about their manliness would overcompensate and were more likely to buy a big car, support the Iraq War and displayed homophobic attitudes. – Source
2. A week before the Iraq War began; Tim Russert reported “every analysis said this war itself would cost about $80 billion. We should expect that this would cost at least $100 billion for a two-year involvement.” Brown University’s final tally was $3.2-4 trillion, or about 3500% more. – Source
3. In 2007 a news anchor refused to report on Paris Hilton in the midst of the Iraq war. She ended up burning one copy of the report and shredding another, while still on the air. – Source
4. In 2003, Morocco offered to send 2,000 monkeys to assist the war effort in Iraq. They were to be used to detonate land mines. – Source
5. During the Iraq war in 2003, the U.S. Military planned to attach chickens atop Hum-Vees in order to detect chemical weapons. The project was named, Operation Kuwaiti Field Chicken (KFC). However, the project failed when 41 of the 43 chickens died within a week of their arrival. – Source
6-10 Iraq War Facts
6. An estimated over 10 million people protested the war in Iraq in February of 2003, making it the largest protest ever. – Source
7. The cost of the Iraq war is enough to provide water systems for every village, every person, on Earth. – Source
8. An American women journalist became one of the first non-Arab Americans arrested on the Patriot Act as a paid “Iraqi Agent”. She was accused of warning her second cousin, Andrew Card and Colin Powell that War with Iraq would have catastrophic consequences. – Source
9. An artist spent a month living in a room with a webcam connected paintball gun that visitors to his website could use to shoot him at will. He did this to protest the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in the Iraq War. – Source
10. During the Iraq War, in 2003 after receiving a tip regarding the location of Uday Hussein, the soldiers that arrived didn’t want to approach the building for safety, to confirm the tip was accurate they had a soldier go and hotwire Uday’s Lamborghini, which had been a gift from Muammar Qaddafi. – Source
11-15 Iraq War Facts
11. Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania was the 1st Iraq war Veteran to become a Congressmen. – Source
12. The Downing Street Memo was a document leaked from the British government in 2002 which revealed the US government’s deliberate misleading of the public in the lead-up to the Iraq War. – Source
13. Post-2003 War, Iraq has the Fastest GDP growth rate in the world, faster than even China. – Source
14. The first American to die in the Iraq War was Marine Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez, 22, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala. During a firefight near the city of Umm Qasr, Gutierrez was killed by friendly fire. He won U.S. citizenship after his death. – Source
15. US Marine Corps reservist Stephen Funk was the first person to openly refuse to serve in the Iraq War, saying he had joined to “learn new things and meet new people” and wasn’t aware “they killed people”. – Source
16-20 Iraq War Facts
16. The U.S. government sent $12 billion in cash to Iraq which just disappeared into the war zone – it was the biggest transfer of cash in the history of the Federal Reserve. – Source
17. The US military issued pogs as coinage during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, because metal coins are more difficult to transport than paper pogs. – Source
18. It is believed that the rescue of Jessica Lynch in the Iraq War was mostly staged for the media. – Source
19. There is a 12-volume set of printed books consisting solely of edits to the Iraq War Wikipedia article from 2004 to 2009. – Source
20. From December 17, 2001 until June 27, 2008, Halliburton stock increased in price consistently from $6.50 to $52.16. These dates coincide with the day Halliburton was awarded their Iraq War contract with the US Army and just prior to the beginning of the global recession. – Source
21-23 Iraq War Facts
21. 170,000 artifacts were not stolen from the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad as was initially reported during the war. 15k were – 10k of which were stolen in an inside job by Museum employees (2.5k returned). 3.1k were stolen by a what is thought to be a “professional thief” (3k returned). – Source
22. In the first week of the Iraq war, 1st Lt. Brian Chontosh saved his troops from an ambush by personally clearing a trench of enemy soldiers, running out of ammo for his rifle and pistol and picking up two enemy rifles along the way to finish the job. – Source
The Downing Street Memo also ignores the many liberals that believed strong evidence of WMDs and sister there when Clinton was president. There were many comments to that effect by Clinton and Gore, but here’s a few examples: Bill Clinton in 1998 and 2003; Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in February 1998; Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger in 1998; Rep. Nancy Pelosi in 1998; General Wesley Clark in 2002; Sen. John Rockefeller in 2002; French President Jacques Chirac in 2003 — all of them, and many more, expressed the overwhelming consensus of the Washington elite of both parties that Saddam Hussein was hiding WMD and that this made him a serious threat both to our allies in the region and the United States itself.
*were; I have no idea how that auto-corrected to “and sister”
I do not see anything referencing the fact #10 in its source :/