A flurry of recent reports on the impact of a war in Iraq are building the case for an impending humanitarian disaster, writes Nyier Abdou By any account, the build-up to a potential war in Iraq is one of the longest, and certainly the most publicly scrutinised. The US has been painted as speeding headlong toward war, but there has still been more than enough time for every angle to be painstakingly examined, be it US imperialism, oil control, Western xenophobia, lucrative arms production, economic fallout, UN impotence, Cold War-style alliances, the conflation of the anti-war movement with the anti- globalisation movement, the resurgence of the Iraqi opposition, or the nebulous function of international law and the so-called international community. As war seems more inevitable by the day, however, the arguments for and against war in Iraq are most often played out as a balance between doing what it takes to rid Iraq of a brutal dictator and the human cost this will entail. While the US and Britain have emphasised the cruelty of the Iraqi leadership and the threat posed by what they maintain is Iraq's ongoing weapons programme, the counterpoint in this dispute has been offered by a number of humanitarian groups seeking to build awareness about the extent of damage caused by the 1991 Gulf War and 12 years of crippling sanctions. On 30 January, two separate reports were issued dealing with the grim humanitarian situation in Iraq, both based on work done by research teams in Iraq last month. In combination with a leaked UN report on the likely humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people in a post-conflict situation, these reports paint an alarming picture of the impact of war on an already debilitated society. The internal UN report, drawn up in December of 2002, serves as the framework document of the UN's Iraq Steering Committee and is the work of UN agencies on the ground in Iraq. As such, it is authoritative in a way that even the most reputable independent organisations can only approach -- although the estimates in the document echo those of a report issued in November by the London-based group Medact, the UK affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), a federation of national medical organisations. IPPNW, along with its Canadian affiliate, Physicians for Global Survival (PGS), as well as other NGOs like War Child Canada and Oxfam Canada, are among the sponsors of a new report issued by the International Study Team (IST). A 10-man team of IST health experts conducted research in Baghdad, Karbala and Basra from 20-26 January focussing on the effect of war on children in Iraq. Child psychologists interviewed some 300 children and experts on nutrition and emergency preparedness while other team members assessed Iraq's ability to cope with a disruption in food aid and increased medical demands. The conclusions were grim, with Canadian team leader Eric Hoskins warning that casualties among children "will be in the thousands, probably in the tens of thousands, and possibly in the hundreds of thousands". At the same time, a 16-man research team of humanitarian experts pulled together by the New York- based Centre for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) -- which sponsored the last comprehensive IST mission in August of 1991 -- was travelling around Iraq to take stock of how water, sanitation, public health and food distribution systems will be affected by war. The team was coordinated by CESR co-director Roger Normand and former UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq Hans von Sponeck. Again, the forecast was bleak. Team member Ronald Waldman, a professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, likened Iraq to "a vast refugee camp" with most of the population surviving on aid and dependent on a "fragile public health system". Teams working in Iraq have been said to be hampered in their efforts to gain credible and accurate data, but members of both teams told Al-Ahram Weekly that they did not find this to be the case. "Although, sometimes, arranging meetings took some working with the usual bureaucracies, we had very few constraints on our ability to move around the country," said Curtis Doebbler, a human rights lawyer, humanitarian expert and member of the IST team who played a large role in putting together the final report. Doebbler said that all interviews were conducted without government monitors. Monitors did travel with the study team members who visited Basra and Karbala, but they did not attend the interviews with children and their families. Cooperation was confirmed by Michael McCally, a professor of public health and preventive medicine at Oregon Health and Sciences University and a member of the research team who put together the CESR report. "We believe that the information we got from UN agencies, NGOs, government officials, and Iraqi physicians, engineers, and technicians allowed us a good picture of health care, nutrition and infrastructure," he told the Weekly, adding that data from one source was usually corroborated by other sources. "Finally, what we were able to see further confirmed what we had read and heard." One of the conditions of the IST study was that child psychologists would have unfettered access to children and their families. Doebbler says that this condition "took some negotiations", but the Iraqi government finally agreed, largely because of the international renown of the psychologists conducting the study. Children were given questionnaires developed to determine their psychological profiles and for measuring children's reactions. The report concluded that "children as young as four and five [have] clear concepts of the horrors of war". The controversial UN document, which notes that some 60 per cent of the population -- 16 million people -- are "highly dependent" on a monthly "food basket", other than which "they have no other means with which to provide for other essential requirements." With major bridges destroyed by bombing and road transportation affected, the distribution of food will quickly dwindle. The UN report estimates that the nutritional status of some 3.03 million people across the country "will be dire" and warns that they "will require therapeutic feeding". The report also estimates that war will engender some 900,000 Iraqi refugees "requiring assistance", adding that this number "may in fact be higher". Direct and indirect casualties of war are estimated at 500,000. The UN report also warns that though there is a "temptation" to compare war scenarios in Iraq with the country's coping capability following the 1991 Gulf War and the 2001 war in Afghanistan, the comparisons "are not valid". Iraqis in 1991 were employed and had a fairly high standard of living, meaning that there were resources to draw on. IST's Doebbler notes that in Afghanistan, many people "had become used to years of hardship" and had developed "coping mechanisms" that were not based on government assistance. "In Iraq, most people are [now] dependent on government food distribution, health care and social services." The CESR report specifically indicates that although health agencies are aware of the humanitarian emergency that will likely follow war in Iraq, there is no workable action plan to handle a post-war crisis. Doebbler notes that the IST report was not intended as either an indictment of the inaction of the UN or the warmongering of the US. He says that the team simply believes that it is "essential that the potential humanitarian impact of a new full-scale war, especially the best interests of children, be considered fully by any body -- UN or government -- that is considering initiating such a war". At present, he said, the international community "is not equipped to react to the expected humanitarian catastrophe that could occur, even in the best of scenarios". This impasse suggests that given the state of Iraqi society today, an effective response capacity may actually be impossible. Should the US lead a war in Iraq, there may be no way to stop the onset of these reports' most forbidding forecasts. But McCally is more cautious. He notes that the CESR team found that a number of humanitarian and relief agencies are already at work on or near Iraq's borders preparing for the fallout of war. He said that at the time of his visit, UN agencies were preparing contingency plans, including participation in relief activities. While McCally made clear that the American public is largely unaware of the effects of sanctions and the possibility for a humanitarian disaster if war is undertaken, he is certain that "some response will clearly be mounted." How effective it will be, however, "can only be evaluated after the fact". From a humanitarian point of view, he said, "the most important and effective action is to prevent a war."
