|
Iraq War Could Kill 500,000 People
Source: New Scientist via Anti WarA war against Iraq could kill half a million people, warns a new report by medical experts - and most would be civilians. The report claims as many as 260,000 could die in the conflict and its three-month aftermath, with a further 200,000 at risk in the longer term from famine and disease. A civil war in Iraq could add another 20,000 deaths. Collateral Damage is being published on Tuesday in 14 countries and has been compiled by Medact, an organisation of British health professionals. From the Medact website: Medact is part of a network of health professionals in 80 countries - International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War - working for the total abolition of nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass destruction.The terror machine couldn't operate nearly as well without the help of the hysteria machine. It comes as the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, is deciding how to respond to a series of deadlines on weapons inspections imposed by the United Nations. If he fails to meet any conditions, the US and the UK have threatened to destroy Iraq's presumed weapons of mass destruction using military force. Keep in mind that the weapons are only "presumed." This implies that we're going to invade Iraq, kill a quarter million people, then say, "Whoops! Nothing here anyway! Sorry 'bout that!" The report has been commended by both medical and military specialists. "It is really important that people understand the consequences of war," says Vivienne Nathanson, head of science and ethics at the British Medical Association. "All doctors look at war with a very large degree of horror because they know the meaning of casualties," she told New Scientist. "Even in the cleanest, most limited conflicts, people die and people suffer." "Military planners have no concept of this, of course..." The report assumes an attack on Iraq will begin with sustained air strikes, followed by an invasion of ground troops and culminating in the overthrow of Baghdad. It concludes that the resulting death toll will be much higher than either the 1991 Gulf War, which killed around 200,000 Iraqis, or the war on Afghanistan, which has so far left less than 5000 dead. Considerably less, in fact... In the report's worst-case scenario, nuclear weapons are fired on Iraq in response to a chemical and biological attack on Kuwait and Israel, leaving a massive 3.9 million people dead. But the report states that even the best-case estimates for a short war would initially kill 10,000 people, "more than three times the number who died on September 11". That implies that we should stop at the 3000 dead mark for the sake of some sort of fairness or reciprocity. There's something wrong with that sort of reasoning, perhaps because of its sheer, warm-milk wimpiness... Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2002-11-13 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=7798 |