Peace Keeping Troops in Iraq

I’ve just done a back of the envelope calculation about the number of peace keeping troops in Iraq.

Compared to Ulster (Northern Ireland), Iraq has a population of 22,000,000 instead of about 1,500,000!

At the peak of the troubles there were something like 15,000 troops and 10,000 police enforcing law and order in the province.

So on a pro-rata basis we would need about 360,000 troops and police to enforce the peace in Iraq. According to USA Today the US has about 140,000 troops there and the British have about 20,000!

No wonder they have problems!

Surely as the coalition forces don’t speak the local languages, you’d actually think they’d need more. Also, isn’t Iraq a bit less compact and well-known than Ulster!

As I said yesterday to a friend of my age! ‘We’ll both be long dead before all coalition troops are out of Iraq!’