THE REAL COSTS

Loss of human life

For Iraq, this is of course as yet unknown. A UN document published before the war estimated that tens and, in the worse case, hundreds of thousands of lives could be lost as a direct or indirect result of the conflict. More recently, the Campaign for an End to Sanctions in Iraq (CASI) published a leaked UN document (“Integrated Humanitarian Contingency Plan for Iraq and Neighbouring Countries”, from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 7 January 2003) that predicts that 30 percent of children under 5 in Iraq, or 1.26 million, “would be at risk of death from malnutrition” in the event of a war. The document, available at http://www.casi.org.uk/info/undocs/internal.html, also says:

“the collapse of essential services in Iraq ... could lead to a humanitarian emergency of proportions well beyond the capacity of UN agencies and other aid organizations” [p. 4(6)]

“all UN agencies have been facing severe funding constraints that are preventing them from reaching even minimum levels of preparedness” [p. 1(3)]

“the effects of over 12 years of sanctions, preceded by war, have considerably increased the vulnerability of the population” [p. 3(5)]

“The WFP [World Food Programme] estimates that approximately 10 million people ... would be highly food insecure, displaced or directly affected by military action” [p. 11(13)]

In addition, at the time of writing there are signs that food aid will be diverted from the current major famine in Africa to help deal with the refugees resulting from the Iraq war (New Scientist, 15 March 2003, p10). This is likely to increase the number of deaths due to malnutrition in Africa.

Reduced quality of life

For those who survive, the loss of infrastructure, damage to social and healthcare services, farming, the economy and the environment will leave hundreds of thousands impoverished and malnourished for years. See above and also: Milan Rai’s War Plan Iraq: Ten Reasons Against War on Iraq, Verso, 2002; Section X, part 4: ‘Catastrophe — War Could Trigger a Humanitarian Disaster’.

A Harvard Study team wrote: “There is a link in Iraq between electrical power and public health. Without electricity, water cannot be purified. Sewage cannot be treated, water-borne diseases flourish and hospitals cannot cure treatable diseases’ (p. 137, as cited by Francis Kelly, ‘War Crimes Committed Against the People of Iraq’, in Ramsey Clark and others, War Crimes: A Report on United States War Crimes Against Iraq [Washington, D.C., Maisonneuve Press, 1992], p. 54). “[T]he destruction of the country’s power plants in 1991 ‘brought its entire system of water purification and distribution to a halt, leading to epidemics of cholera, typhoid fever, and gastroenteritis, particularly among children.’ Death rates doubled or tripled among children admitted to hospitals in Baghdad and Basra. Cases of marasmus, a disease of acute malnutrition, appeared for the first time in decades…‘There were approximately 47,000 excess deaths among children under five years of age during the first eight months of 1991. The deaths resulted from infectious diseases, the decreased quality and availability of food and water, and an enfeebled medical care system hampered by the lack of drugs and supplies’” (p. 138 of War Plan Iraq [as above], from Leon Eisenberg, M.D., ‘The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters — Human Costs of Economic Sanctions’, New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 336(17), 24 Apr. 1997, pp. 1248-1250).

Delayed impacts from remains of weapons

Depleted uranium, or DU, is radioactive and is used “in the manufacture of armaments such as tank cartridges, bombs, rockets and missiles.” (p. 96, William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, updated edition, 2002, first published in the UK by Zed Books, Ltd., London.) Up to 3kg of DU are emitted from one Abrams tank round.

From that same text:

“Upon impact with a target, DU aerosolizes into a fine mist of particles, which can be inhaled or ingested and then trapped in the lungs, the kidneys or elsewhere in the body. This can lead to lung cancer, bone cancer, kidney disease, genetic defects and other serious medical problems. Or a person can be hit by DU shrapnel, and have a chunk of radioactive metal imbedded in their insides. One atomic scientist has asserted that DU particles thrown into the air by the round’s impact, or by resultant fires and explosions, can be carried downwind for 25 miles or more.” (p. 96, citing International Action Center (New York), Metal of Dishonor: Depleted Uranium, pp. 3-40, 134-149.) “In 1995, Iraqi health officials reported alarmingly high increases in rare and unknown diseases, primarily in children and presented a study of this state of affairs to the United Nation. The increases occurred in leukemia, carcinoma, cancers of the lung and digestive system, late-term miscarriages, congenital diseases, and deformities in fetuses, such as anencephaly (absence of a brain), and fused fingers and toes, not unlike those found in the babies of Gulf War veterans.’ (p. 97, citing The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 1995, p. 105).

And, on cluster bombs:

“A 1999 Human Rights Watch report says that of an estimated 24 to 30 million bomblets dropped during the Gulf War, between 1.2 and 1.5 million did not explode, leading so far to 1,220 Kuwaiti and 400 Iraqi civilian deaths.” (p. 102, citing Rachel Stohl, ‘Cluster Bombs Leave Lasting Legacy’, report of the Center for Defense Information [Washington, D.C.], August 5, 1999.) One canister (i.e. the contents of a cruise “dispenser” weapon) of cluster munitions can cover an area the size of several football pitches with mines and anti personnel weapons, making farmland and open spaces too dangerous to use until after very time-consuming mine clearance operations.

Effects on the environment

The environmental effects of the war in Iraq will be major, and will include local air pollution and climate change due to burning oil wells and groundwater pollution from leaking oil wells and other bombed industrial facilities. This will damage many fragile ecosystems in the country (see New Scientist, 15^th March 2003, p12-13). The total CO₂ emissions from invasion are estimated to be roughly equivalent to the total UK emission for one year (according to Aubrey Meyer of the Global Commons Institute, http://www.gci.org.uk/main.html; see

http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/forum/messages/189.html).

The IUCN, a World Conservation Union representing 70 governments, has issued a statement calling for “the humanitarian and environmental tragedy” that will follow from this war to be averted. The statement says that the IUCN concluded that the environmental consequences of the 1991 war against Iraq had caused widespread, devastating damage extending far beyond the conflict itself, and anticipated a repeat of this damage particularly to rivers, wetlands, marshes, the desert and the seas which could undermine the natural resource base on which millions of people depend for their livelihood and would leave a human and ecological debt that will take years or decades to pay off. The statement is available at:

http://www.iucn.org/info_and_news/press/iraqstatement210303.pdf

A reminder of where the dollars go

The proposed US budget of 2004 clearly demonstrates Washington’s priorities. President Bush has requested $380 billion for the military, $4.7 billion for countries that have joined in his “war on terror” and $2 billion for fighting poverty (Inter Press Service, February 3^rd 2003).

Additional US spending in Iraq is to be $47 billion (Sky News, 25 March 2003), but in fact the total is $75 billion if $6 billion for “aid” and $24 billion in loan guarantees to Turkey is included.
http://newsobserver.com/news/story/2374894p-2212684c.html