The American media has a tendency to focus on American casualties while mentioning the casualties of other nations only in passing, “Seven Americans Killed during the Complete Annihilation of the Republican Guard” (I just made that up.)
These kinds of headlines got me to thinking about an article I read years ago during the Iran / Iraq war. It was tucked away in the middle of Section A and given about three paragraphs. In the middle of the article was a little tidbit that went something like, “Over the past week (or maybe just a couple of days) there have been an estimated 60,000 casualties among the combatants.” I can’t remember the exact statistic, but it was one of those things that makes your eyes bug out.
Does anyone know about the casualty counts of that war? I’d like to refresh my memory.
Pretty hard to say, as both sides fudged numbers and sometimes didn’t even bother to count.
Anthony Cordesman et al in Lessons of Modern War: vol. II, The Iran-Iraq War ( 199o, Westview Press Inc. ) estimated ( based on a 1988 CIA estimate ) :
Iran - 450,000 - 730,000 killed; 600,000 - 1,200,000 wounded; 45,000 captured
Iraq - 150,000 - 340,000 killed; 400,000 - 700,000 wounded; 70,000 captured
This site: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/war/iran-iraq.htm
…guesses a little lower ( possibly based on a more revised estimate than that earlier CIA one ), though within the same rough range:
Iran - ~300,000 killed; ~500,000 wounded ( but maybe as many as 1,000,000 casualties total )
Iraq - maybe ~375,000 casualties total; with ~60,000 captured
Oh, yeah - Add as many as 2,500,000 refugees displaced by the fighting ( both sides, but most heavily in Iran ).
Thanks, Tamerlane. Was there perhaps a particular battle in which there were horrific losses?
And is there any information on the number of repatriated POWs?
does anyone know about how many each country lost due to people fleeing?
most of my family has left iran. majority left either right at the end of the shah’s time or during the war. many of my mother’s friends left around that time too.
also could the fact that some of these people basically just disappeared effect the calculations on casualities?
Quite a few. For one example, the Karbala-5 offensive in 1985, one American estimate two weeks into the fighting, was that there was as many 40,000 Iranian and 10,000 Iraqi casualties . Five weeks in, maybe 60,000 Iranian; 20,000 Iraqi. All numbers being suspect of course ( Iran and Iraq two months in were claiming wildly overstated numbers like 230,000-280,000 Iranian casualties and >56,000 Iraqi casualties ).
But regardless, there were a lot of very bloody engagements. A lot of the casualties stemming from the crude tactics used.
One cite I’ve seen claims 3,665,000 between 1979-1996, total. As per here: http://www.farsinet.com/pwo/diaspora.html
However, that total is almost certainly over-inflated.
Immigration data shows a far more modest number in the U.S. that is claimed by the above cite, for instance. As per this table, which shows total immigration into U.S. accepted as permanent residents at ~226,000 by 1990, with a total number of Iranian-Americans at around 284,000:
http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2001/May/Iranians/index2.html
1987-2000, 40,000 were admitted into U.S… See here:
http://www.iranexpert.com/2002/refugee7january.htm
Even adding in non-permanent residents, I suspect ~1.5 million Iranian-Americans is an overestimate. Still - It’s a lot.
I don’t think those are numbers are counted in either casualty or refugee figures, however. They only add to them.
Here’s a link that implies most ( 97,000 ) were:
http://www.helpicrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList452/20E15BCAA3EE9E19C1256CE6004E2512
However at least some of the Iraqi prisoners in Iranian hands ended up forming SCIRI, the Iranian-sponsored anti-Iraqi Shi’a organization that claims several thousand fighters now.
Have there been any other conflicts since, say, WWII that have had casualties of this magnitude?
Vietnam ( over 15 years ) and Korea ( over 3 ) both surpassed Iran-Iraq, I believe. However in terms of only two combatants, I’d say they’re at the top of the list and perhaps third overall ( maybe - the Chinese Civil War was pretty bloody as well ).
I’m also not counting mass civilian slaughters as in Rwanda-Burundi.
Well according to Matt White’s Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century the 20 deadliest wars of the 20th century were:
Military
Death Toll War
1 20,000,000 Second World War 1937-45
2 8,500,000 First World War 1914-18
3 1,200,000 Korean War 1950-53
4 1,200,000 Chinese Civil War 1945-49
5 1,200,000 Vietnam War 1965-73
6 850,000 Iran-Iraq War 1980-88
7 800,000 Russian Civil War 1918-21
8 400,000 Chinese Civil War 1927-37
9 385,000 French Indochina 1945-54
10 200,000 Mexican Revolution 1911-20
10 200,000 Spanish Civil War 1936-39
12 160,000 French-Algerian War 1954-62
13 150,000 Afghanistan 1980-89
14 130,000 Russo-Japanese War 1904-05
15 100,000 Riffian War 1921-26
15 100,000 First Sudanese Civil War 1956-72
15 100,000 Russo-Polish War 1919-20
15 100,000 Biafran War 1967-70
19 90,000 Chaco War 1932-35
20 75,000 Abyssinian War 1935-36
These are military deaths only, and with all such numbers are in many cases little more than gueses.
I’ll buy that - slip Iran-Iraq into fourth in the post-WW II era, then.
Interesting side note - Those casualties in the Rif War are overwhelmingly European, taken at the hands of a Moroccan Berber force that never numbered more than several thousand. Not a well-known conflict, but one of the bloodiest modern colonial wars in terms of battle casualties. The Spanish took staggering losses ( it was here, restoring some stability to the awful Spanish position, that Francisco Franco first made his reputation ).
I don’t think I had ever even head of the Rif war until this thread. I found this link that gives a brief summary of the action.
RR
RiverRunner: The best ( maybe only ) book on the subject is called Rebels in the Rif:* Abd el-Krim and the Rif Rebellion* by David S. Woolman ( 1968, Stanford University Press ). It’s compelling reading.