The Audit of War

For the Western armed forces, Operation Desert Storm was an almost bloodless victory. There were only a few casualties and the better part of the 70 billion dollars that the war had cost was recovered from wealthy Arab nations like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and from outsiders like Germany and Japan. The war has turned out to be fruitful for Western business. The reconstruction of Kuwait has resulted in large trade agreements with the United States and the arms industry flowered like never before. Admiral Gene LaRoque, public relations officer of the Ministry of Defence even calls it "the best thing that has happened to the U.S. arms industry in years". Some estimates indicate that the U.S. have made a few billion dollars out of this war. However, the victims are in Iraq. According to the Pentagon's evaluations, 150,000 Iraqi soldiers and 200,000 civilians got killed. These figures do not include the numbers of Kurd and Shiite victims, nor the number of casualties still expected as a result of the ravages of the war. More than four million people lost their houses. Many migrants who were transferring their money to their families in poorer countries like Jordan and Bangladesh are a lot worse off now. There is a lack of clean water, food, medicine, and electricity. The film shows how Yemen, a country that voted against the main resolutions of the Security Council of the United Nations, has had to take the rap for it. Yemen lost all forms of aid, foreign workers from the Gulf states were exiled, and the consequences for the people have made themselves felt. Another big loser is the environment. The makers of this film wonder if, now that Saddam Hussein is more firmly in charge than ever, it is still possible to maintain that the war against Iraq was worth being fought.