2 Answers 2. The Moon has an orbital eccentricity of 0.0549, so its path around the Earth is not perfectly circular and the distance between the Earth and the Moon will vary from the Earth's frame of reference (Perigee at 363,295 km and apogee at 405,503 km), see for example second animation explaining Lunar librations in this answer.
The attack was part of the Al-Anfal Campaign in northern Iraq, as well as part of the Iraqi attempt to repel the Iranian Operation Zafar 7. It took place 48 hours after the fall of the town to Iranian army. The attack killed between 3,200 and 5,000 people and injured 7,000 to 10,000 more, most of them civilians.
The war on Iraq did not begin in 2003, but in 1991 with the first Gulf War, which was followed by the UN sanctions regime. An early PSR study by Beth Daponte, then a US government Census Bureau demographer, found that Iraq deaths caused by the direct and indirect impact of the first Gulf War amounted to around 200,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians.