Re: Exponential difference in power

From: Doug Thayer (d_l_thayer@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Mar 21 2003 - 09:45:15 MST

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    On Fri, Mar 21, 2003 at 10:03:15AM +0100, Max M wrote:
    > I am not really sure whether I should have labelled this post as IRAQ
    > or WAR. But I actually do believe it is on topic, so I didn't. Sorry if
    > I choose wrong.
    >
    > I cannot help but being somewhat amazed about the difference in power of
    > the Iraqi and the coalition forces. It is probably many things that
    > works together here, to make this difference.

    There is a tremendous difference in economic effort. The US spends approx.
    $300 billion each year on defense. Iraq has probably been lucky to spend
    $2B a year since 1991 and was only spending $10B a year before that.

    Proportionately, if the US were purchasing the same type of weapons as
    the Iraqis at the same prices, our invasion army would have 30 million men.
    There would be more Americans in Iraq than Iraqis.

    After Gulf 1 I did some calculations on how much the US was spending to
    destroy Iraqi equipment. Our effort cost $65 billion. I gathered figures
    on what had been destroyed and what the value of that equipment was on the
    world market. It turned out that we were spending about $13 to destroy $1
    of enemy stuff.

    So far, I haven't seen anything that wasn't also present in Gulf 1.
    Precision weapons, Iraqis surrendering en masse, operation proceeding "much
    better than we had dared to hope", it is almost an exact replay.

    ----
    Doug
    


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