How many Iraqis died?
Independent analysts generally 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.
According to "Gulf War Air Power Survey" by Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, (a report commissioned by the U.S. Air Force; 1993-ISBN 0-16-041950-6), there were an 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 says 2,300 civilians died during the air campaign.
One infamous incident during the war highlighted the question of large-scale Iraqi combat deaths. This was the `bulldozer assault' in which two brigades from the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized)--The Big Red One--used 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 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 found 44 bodies.
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