The Chilcot inquiry: The reckoning – the Iraq War by numbers

The Iraq Report – Part 6: A summary of the Iraq War by numbers

The Royal Welsh Fusiliers near Basra, southern Iraq, in 2004. 179 UK servicemen and women died in the Iraq war (Getty Images)

After six years and nearly £9m, the report of Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war remains unpublished. Here is a summary of the war in numbers.

179

Deaths of UK servicemen and women

4,488

US military deaths

139

Other Coalition military deaths

134,000

Lower estimate of Iraqi civilian deaths (The Lancet estimated 600,000.)

£9.6bn

Cost to UK of operations in Iraq

3.4m

Iraqi refugees since 2003 (of whom 1.8m fled the country and 1.6 million were displaced within Iraq)

3

Official UK inquiries so far relating to the conflict: Lord Hutton’s in 2003; Lord Butler’s in 2004; and Sir John Chilcot’s (2009-2011)

129

Witnesses called to give evidence to the Chilcot inquiry

£9m

Cost of the Chilcot inquiry so far

4

Years since the Chilcot inquiry finished

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After six years and nearly £9m, the report of Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war remains unpublished – and, we were told this week, will not be published this side of the general election.

Will the British public ever be told the truth about a conflict that millions of them opposed, whose lethal fallout can still be felt across the world today? In the absence of an official account, this series of articles – based on evidence given to the inquiry and other accounts that are already in the public domain – is an attempt to set down in writing, as objectively as possible, the known facts and unresolved questions of one of the most bitterly controversial episodes in recent British history.