During the 1980's, there was a prolonged war between Iraq and Iran. The war was fought for many reasons, but primarily over each country's greed for one another's oil. Eventually, this led to the US's launching of "Operation Staunch". This was a US policy passed by the Reagan Administration to prevent all arms and ammunition sales to Iran or Iraq from the United States. When the US was forced to break its policy in order …showed first 75 words of 800 total…

…showed last 75 words of 800 total…worse, with nearly one thousand times more deaths and casualties. U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency estimated that Iraq ended the war with approximately 100,000 dead (military and civilian), 300,000 wounded, and 60,000 being held prisoner. On top of these numbers, an additional 150,000 troops had been left or stranded in the middle of the hot and dangerous desert. Many of Iraq's deaths during the war were children under the age of five who had died from deadly disease outbreaks.