How many did Saddam kill?

[Bluesplayer]

Just curious - I know what a bastard Saddam is, and that he has "killed his own citizens," but how many, exactly, did he kill per year from 1991 - 2003?

[ladylibertee]

1. I'm waiting for someone to find out because I have no clue. It is a

good question though.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

2. That depends...

If you want to count the Iran/Iraq war and possibly the first Gulf war, then the answer is definitely "millions."

Edit: Iraq killed about 90,000 kurds during the war with Iran alone.

[oblivious]

3. As far as I remember the Iran-Iraq war was from 1980 to 1988

The period asked about in the OP was 1991 to 2003.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

4. d'oh!

Sorry.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

5. Some background...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_hussein#1991-2003

[applegrove]

6. Why would you start at 1991?

[Igel]

8. Post-Gulf War I.

After that, one view goes, things changed considerably.

I'd think the OP should have said 1992, post-Shi'a uprising.

[rinsd]

7. Why start at 1991?

Good sources would be Amnesty Int'l (this goes up to current times)

http://web.amnesty.org/library/eng-irq/index

And the Human Right Watch.

http://www.hrw.org/doc?t=mideast&c=iraq

It is estimated about 100,000 to 150,000 Shiites died in the failed rebellion during and after the first Gulf war. There were also attacks against the Kurds in nothern Iraq. That is why the no-fly zones were established.

Of course previous to 1991 there was the Iran-Iraq war and his struggle to create a totalitarian state.

[Igel]

9. Exactly, we'll never know.

Generally, we'll never know.

To what extent was putting down the Shi'a uprising lawful? What occurred in Kurdistan? Even then, how many were actually killed there?

How many people died under sanctions? (And why do the researchers' initial assumptions and changeable societal attitudes affect the final numbers so much, even the results of 'on the ground surveys'?) Does Saddam's reluctance to accept oil-for-food as initially proposed count against him, or do deaths resulting from sanctions count against us? How about the way he manipulated the quantities of aid imported under oil-for-food, and how the aid was distributed? Does he bear any responsibility for the sanctions at all? How many did the state apparatus kill directly, as opposed to indirectly?

We can guess. But most of the numbers I've seen haven't even made the pretense to have error estimates. (Can you estimate the error in a guess?)

[GayCanuck]

10. I saw a PBS special

a few years ago on the Iran/Iraq war and it concluded that 1 million Iraqi men died in the 10 year war.