On Thu, 18 Dec 2003, BillyGOTO wrote:
On Thu, Dec 18, 2003 at 07:18:04PM +0000, Jim Dixon wrote:
Relevant numbers from the Times today, quoting Air Force Monthly, January 2003: from 1980 to 1990 Iraq imported 28.9 billion pounds worth of weapons. 19% by value were from France; 57% from the Soviet Union (ie Russia), East Germany, and Czechoslovakia; 8% from China. Sales from the United States were inconsequential and did not make the list. From earlier articles in other publications I believe that in fact US sales were a small fraction of 1%.
I smell statistical acrobatics by the USAF... Do we really measure weapons in pounds?
In the UK we measure sales in pounds sterling. One pound = $1.75 and rising.
I'd rather see a listing of weapons imports from JUST the period of the Iran-Iraq war than a listing of weapons imports from 1980-1990.
One is included in the other. From memory, total US military sales to Iraq in the decade were $3 million. As we all know, in Washington DC "a billion dollars here, a billion dollars there -- pretty soon you are talking real money". Three million dollars will buy you a few coffee pots and a monkey wrench for your AWACS aircraft. -- Jim Dixon jdd@dixons.org tel +44 117 982 0786 mobile +44 797 373 7881 http://jxcl.sourceforge.net Java unit test coverage http://xlattice.sourceforge.net p2p communications infrastructure