saw this, thought it might be of interest:

Here's some information worth knowing that you'll never get on CNN. Do you know enough to justify going to war with Iraq? Take the War on Iraq IQ Test:

1. Q: What percentage of the world's population does the U.S. have?
A: 6%

2. Q: What percentage of the world's wealth does the U.S. have?
A: 50%

3. Q: Which country has the largest oil reserves?
A: Saudi Arabia

4. Q: Which country has the second largest oil reserves?
A: Iraq

5. Q: How much is spent on military budgets a year worldwide?
A: $900+ billion

6. Q: How much of this is spent by the U.S.?
A:50%

7. Q: What percent of US military spending would ensure the essentials of life to everyone in the world, according the the UN?
A: 10% (that's about $40 billion, the amount of funding initially requested to fund our retaliatory attack on Afghanistan).

8. Q: How many people have died in wars since World War II?
A: 86 million

9. Q: How long has Iraq had chemical and biological weapons?
A: Since the early 1980's.

10. Q: Did Iraq develop these chemical and biological weapons on their own?
A: No, the materials and technology were supplied by the US government, along with Britain and private corporations.

11. Q: Did the US government condemn the Iraqi use of gas warfare against Iran?
A: No

12. Q: How many people did Saddam Hussein kill using gas in the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988?
A: 5,000

13. Q: How many western countries condemned this action at the time?
A:0

14. Q: How many gallons of Agent Orange did America use in Vietnam?
A: 17 million.

15. Q: Are there any proven links between Iraq and September 11th terrorist attack?
A: No

16. Q: What is the estimated number of civilian casualties in the Gulf War?
A: 35,000

17. Q: How many casualties did the Iraqi military inflict on the western forces during the Gulf War?
A: 0

18. Q: How many retreating Iraqi soldiers were buried alive by U.S. tanks with ploughs mounted on the front?
A: 6,000

19. Q: How many tons of depleted uranium were left in Iraq and Kuwait after the Gulf War?
A: 40 tons

20. Q: What according to the UN was the increase in cancer rates in Iraq between 1991 and 1994?
A: 700%

21. Q: How much of Iraq's military capacity did America claim it had destroyed in 1991?
A: 80%

22. Q: Is there any proof that Iraq plans to use its weapons for anything other than deterrence and self defense?
A: No

23. Q: Does Iraq present more of a threat to world peace now than 10 years ago?
A: No

24. Q: How many civilian deaths has the Pentagon predicted in the event of an attack on Iraq in 2002/3?
A: 10,000

25. Q: What percentage of these will be children?
A:Over 50%

26. Q: How many years has the U.S. engaged in air strikes on Iraq?
A: 11 years

27. Q: Was the U.S and the UK at war with Iraq between December 1998 and eptember 1999?
> A: No
>
> 28. Q: How many pounds of explosives were dropped on Iraq between December 1998 and September 1999?
> A: 20 million
>
> 29. Q: How many years ago was UN Resolution 661 introduced, imposing strict sanctions on Iraq's imports and exports?
> A: 12 years
>
> 30. Q: What was the child death rate in Iraq in 1989 (per 1,000 births)?
> A: 38
>
> 31. Q: What was the estimated child death rate in Iraq in 1999 (per 1,000 births)?
> A: 131 (that's an increase of 345%)
>
> 32. Q: How many Iraqis are estimated to have died by October 1999 as a result of UN sanctions?
> A: 1.5 million
>
> 33. Q: How many Iraqi children are estimated to have died due to sanctions since 1997?
> A: 750,000
>
> 34. Q: Did Saddam order the inspectors out of Iraq?
> A:No
>
> 35. Q: How many inspections were there in November and > December 1998?
> A:300
>
> 36. Q: How many of these inspections had problems?
> A:5
>
> 37. Q: Were the weapons inspectors allowed entry to the Ba'ath Party HQ?
> A: Yes
>
> 38. Q: Who said that by December 1998, Iraq had in fact, been disarmed to a level unprecedented in modern history.
> A: Scott Ritter, UNSCOM chief.
>
> 39. Q: In 1998 how much of Iraq's post 1991 capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction did the UN weapons inspectors claim to have discovered and dismantled?
> A: 90%
>
> 40. Q: Is Iraq willing to allow the weapons inspectors back in?
> A:Yes
>
> 41. Q: How many UN resolutions did Israel violate by 1992?
> A: Over 65
>
> 42. Q: How many UN resolutions on Israel did America veto between 1972 and 1990?
> A: 30+
>
> 43. Q: How much does the U.S. fund Israel a year?
> A: $5 billion
>
> 44. Q: How many countries are known to have nuclear weapons?
> A: 8
>
> 45. Q: How many nuclear warheads does Iraq have?
> A: 0
>
> 46. Q: How many nuclear warheads does US have?
> A: over 10,000
>
> 47. Q: Which is the only country to use nuclear weapons?
> A: the US
>
> 48. Q: How many nuclear warheads does Israel have?
> A:Over 400
>
> 49. Q: Has Israel ever allowed UN weapons inspections?
> A: No
>
> 50. Q: What percentage of the Palestinian territories are controlled by Israeli settlements?
> A: 42%
>
> 51. Q: Is Israel illegally occupying Palestinian land?
> A: Yes
>
> 52. Q: Which country do you think poses the greatest threat to global peace: Iraq or the U.S.?
> A: ?
>
> 53. Q: Who said, "Our lives begin to end the day we become
> silent about things that matter"?
> A: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

Excellent.
But how long b4 the usual suspects appear and either consign it to Muppets, or trot out the same old crap about how we "HAVE" to go in now.
And of course, it's got nowt to do with oil.............how could I even think it?:D:
Alcazar

Interesting set of Q and As. I've always been sceptical of the justification for this war, but apparently that makes me a "tree-hugger".

I'm niether pro or anti. But I am getting worried about the way things are going and how little support there is :(

bollocks.

What a load of speculation.

no-one knows the true figures, it's all only `estimates` from people.

how many people has sadam's regeme tortured and killed over the last 20 years?

I bet it's not less than 10000.....

TelBoy you aint a tree hugger you just have an opinion

IQ test indeed. The author doesn't seem to understand percentages

telboy - I have an opinion, and in it you're a tree hugger ;)

...and America is torturing Al Qaeda suspects as we type. These guys are 'Suspects' - this means they havent had a trial and are therefore not proved to be terrorists.

USA are out of order - they are making an issue over one country and ignoring their own behaviour and especially Israel's.

a couple of thruths/useful facts, but mostly utter bullpoo.

nice one uncle buck and did u hear donald saying they might go to war without britian and now he has backtracked

The fact is tht even the US government would not dispute the above stats....the problem is that the public is brainwashed using constant repition of phrases like 'weapons of massd estruction' and the populace is lead to believe that they are under grave danger from Iraq....hence the war is supported....IMHO this is simply phase 2 of colonialism...

if the roll over and lie on your back people are tree huggers, what are the pro war referred to as

Krankyd, you're right of course. About Iraq's regime, that is.

But then again, how about, ooh, Turkey? You know, that fine upstanding NATO member? The ones who routinely arrest, torture and execute people for being Kurdish? Or Israel, that fine upstanding product of post-colonial British meddling and the US arms industry, who routinely arrest, torture and execute people for, well for pretty well anything actually. Being a paramedic in the wrong place, being a journalist filming the wrong thing, being a Palestinian, whatever. Or all the other wonderful, democratic regimes that the US has supported over the years - Chile, The Philipines, El Salvador, Iraq (when they were the barrier between Iranian fundamentalism and the rest of The Gulf), Iran (when Shah was in power) and so on.

Nobody doubts that Saddam is a b@stard and that the world would be a better place without him. It would just be nice for the US to recognise that the level of resentment and animosity against them is down to their extraordinary level of double standards and hypocracy when it comes to matters of foreign policy.

For the record, by the way, most of the figures quoted in the first post are not estimates. They are derived from ongoing census and inspection programmes carried out by the UN and from mandatory budget reports given by the US DoD.

SB

bros2, why exactly is Iraq more of a threat than it was 10 years ago? And you're not allowed to repeat anything you might have read in (someone else's) copy of The Sun.

sorry uncle

too much subjectivity when we need objectivity. lacks crucial context which makes it empirically useless as a means of judging the situation.

reads like a stop-the-war coalition, anti-american hate list that portrays saddam as the victim. we all know that to be otherwise.

the answer you list to the crucial q.10 is incomplete and therefore spurious.

remember:

- the french supplied iraq with mustard gas and the knowledge to make it.

- the germans supplied iraq with its entire laboratory-based chemical and biological weapons infrastructure.

these are documented facts. that they are ignored by the media is proof of their bias.

how can you say that iraq has only used WMD for self-defence or deterrence in question 22 when in question 12 you admit that Hussein butchered 5,000 iraqi civilians at halabja? total contradiction: deterrence? (against what?). self-defence? (against what?).

your question 32 states that 1.5m Iraqis have died because of UN sanctions. an interesting way of looking at the fact that we have allowed saddam to purchase medicine and food in exchange for oil and it is saddam who has held back these supplies from his people. so, correction needed: saddam is responsible for the deaths of 1.5m of his own people by denying them essential supplies sent to him.

an analogy would be that by failing to defeat germany earlier in WW2 means we are responsible for the holocaust. rot, of course.

sorry to rain on your parade but this stuff is flawed where it counts and is therefore of little merit.

I didn't write it - just thought it was interesting and might provoke some discussion :)

for the record, 150 foreign firms from the US, UK, france, germany, switzerland and china have supplied saddam with chemical, biological or nuclear systems/components since 1975.

(Source: Die Tagezeitung).

24 from the US but 80 from germany. you can easily find out the identities of these firms as the information is public. if any of you work for those listed - and several are blue-chip corporations with household names - i wouldn't recommend pointing it out to your boss.

i know you didn't write it, nothing personal.

bros2, i appreciate what you're saying, but at the end of the day it's all speculation and hypothesising. Nobody really has the facts, or at least they're not telling us if they do.

Yes, he's in contradiction of the UN resolution. He has been for 12 years. So my point is, and always has been; why now??? Why jump in headlong without a second resolution, when he's done nothing to anybody for quite some time. He's not the only tyrant on the planet, so why him, and why now?

Something needs to be done.... everybody agrees to that right? So, What should we do? What can we do? whine like schoolgirls about how we should try to make an omlette without breaking wind, or get our balls out on the table and say "enough is enough."

1441 gives whoever the LEGAL RIGHT to go and teach the little sh1t a lesson.

Whatever the US has done in the past (e.g. israel etc) is irrelavent since 9/11.

Oil -> the reason France will vito the "we really mean it" resolution, IRAQ is where they get it from.

Missing WOMD material; Can't trust Saddam not to have given it to anyone. Is he not co-operating because some it already missing? and there is a biggie about to be dropped on the west... Lets go and find out, we can;t afford not to.

I'm pro going in, but worried about the way it may happen. I by no means know all the ins and outs, but i think that alot of anti war opinions are formed from a lack of consideration for all the facts. Blair is trying to do the right thing, and is having to put up with alot of hostile sh1t from his own people, who elected him to do presisely the job he is doing now. He is also putting up with a lot from most of the other countries in the world, including the US. I have alot more RESPECT for Mr Blair over this whole sh1tfest.

Dan, and i'd argue that everyone calling for a war is doing so without full consideration of the costs, ramifications, aftermath and so on.

Personally, i'd rather have 200 new, fully equipped hospitals than fight this war.

Personally, i'd rather have a teacher for every 15 kids in the country.

Personally, i'd like a policeman to occasionally walk down my road.

Personally, i'd prefer not to have to pay my taxes for the inevitable multi-billion dollar clean-up and re-building programme that will follow.

Personally, i'd rather not live in acountry that will become a terrorist target.

All in my humble little opinion of course. :)

So what should happen?

I also think that there has been alot of sheep following in this country about "Stop the War..." bla bla bla.

But Jason, that's purely an assumption. Why are we any more at risk from Iraq today than we have been for the past 12 years, apart from by signing up for this unauthorised war?

What should have happened is for Saddam Hussein to be removed during the last Gulf war. But George Dubbya wants to finish what his father started, and that's that. He isn't going to bring the troops back now, so anything the UN say or do is irrelevant.

The world is not the same today as it was 12 years ago. We all know what should have happened, but that doesn't help us NOW.

Sbradley good post I was thinking about wether I could be bothered to post somthing similar(but less coherent and informed) when I read it.

Dan, and i certainly don't think going to war now will help.

How many of the people going along with the war are "sheep"? Or are they all independently-minded people, in possession of all the facts, and talking from a country which they know/assume is safe from a full-scale invasion (aka the US)?

Should we leave him alone then? Or should we wait and see what happens? Do you not change your oil just to see what happens, or do you change it even though it could probably be okay for another few miles....?

Make a list from the UK's point of view; reasons to go in weighted by importance verses reasons not to go in weighted by importance. Which is longer?

It's a difficult situation Dan, i make no bones about that. I totally accept that the regime is potentially very dangerous, but i'm just questioning why the UK and US are apparently "right", and the rest of the world is "wrong". We've had 12 years to sort this out, how come now is the optimum time? Why weren't all the people on here in favour of a war up in arms and demanding action five years ago?? What's changed?