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War: what is it good for?

In the Gulf War the large Iraqi and Kuwaiti civilian populations have been exposed to the effects of war, the consequences of which may yet spread to neighbouring populations.

Military casualties had been estimated by an independent Washington think-tank before force-levels were increased in January. Estimating on the same basis, the Medical Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (MCANW) predicted that military casualties might total 314,000 troops on both sides, including 63,000 dead. This estimate assumed no significant use of Iraq’s chemical weapons and no use of nuclear warheads.

These casualty estimates did not include the injured among the 161/2 million Iraqis or the 11/2 million Kuwaitis.

MCANW predicted that civilian casualties would be greater than military casualties, because civilians were more numerous, located in strategically important areas, less well informed, less protected from attack, and likely to receive much less immediate medical care. In wars during the 1980s, 84% of all war-dead were civilians. If this proportion is repeated in the Gulf war, the total number of civilian casualties could exceed 1 million, including over 100,000 civilian deaths.

Long-term health and environmental consequences could result from the destruction in Iraq, Kuwait and in neighbouring countries of living conditions, infrastructure and resources — notable oil fields and chemical plants.

The UK Prime Minister minimised any environmental consequences of a Gulf war, saying “on any realistic estimate the main effect would be to increase annual world C02 emissions by a small amount”, in answer to a parliamentary question on 6 December.

This complacency has been contradicted by engineering consultant Dr John Cox, who notes in a briefing for MCANW that... “within 1000 miles of Kuwait itself, the pall of smoke (from blazing oil-wells) could be several times that predicted by the nuclear war scenarios... these predict failure of the Asian monsoons... Upwards of 1000 million people depend on the annual rains for their crops and could face starvation.”

He continues: “In addition to direct climatic consequences of uncontrolled burning, smoke is an ozone-scavenger and creates localised ozone holes... A population of several hundred millions would be in the affected region and, directly by the impact of UV radiation or indirectly from the failure of crops, would suffer.”