# How many troops did the US send?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-troops-did-the-us-send/164667>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 28, 2003, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-troops-did-the-us-send/164667 "2003-03-28T00:59:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-troops-did-the-us-send/164667/1 "2003-03-28T00:59:52Z")

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I believed until now that America sent roughly 300,000 troops to the gulf. Then I heard the woman on the news say “The US plans to double the number of troops in the gulf to 200,000” meaning there were originally 100,000.

So were there only 100,000 to start with?

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**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-troops-did-the-us-send/164667/2 "2003-03-28T02:44:23Z")

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no no no.

200,000 there in area/gulf.

About 100,000 in Iraq. About 90k in Iraq 3-5 days ago.  
30k - 50k more on the way.

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**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-troops-did-the-us-send/164667/3 "2003-03-28T02:49:43Z")

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According to [CNN](http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/war.tracker/index.html) here are troop deployment figures totals to the Persian Gulf:

December 2002: 25,000  
January 2003: 140,000  
February 2003: 188,000  
March 2003: 248,000

CNN says these figures do not include troops already in the Gulf prior to December 2002.

Keep in mind that 30,000 wer called up yesterday and another 120,000 were called to today. Assuming these numbers are not included above, it’s posible there will be almost 500,000 troops in the area within a month.