A war's likely toll on Iraqis

In anticipation of such needs, Oxfam International and other organizations are positioning staff and equipment in the region. UN agencies that focus on children, refugees, and others who need help are storing food, blankets, and other material in Iran and other neighboring countries.

Jeremy Hobbs, Oxfam's executive director, worries that, in the event of war, airstrikes will target Iraqi power stations.

"If that happened, the Iraqi water and sanitation system, which depends on electricity and which is already in a parlous state, would collapse, leaving millions of people vulnerable to diseases and epidemics," he says.

For its part, the Bush administration lays most of the blame for Iraqis' suffering at the feet of Saddam Hussein. "To craft tragedy, the regime places civilians close to military equipment, facilities, and troops, which are legitimate targets in an armed conflict," says the White House in a recent report titled "Apparatus of Lies: Saddam's Disinformation and Propaganda 1990-2003."

"To exploit suffering, Saddam blames starvation and medical crises - often of his own making - on the United Nations or the United States and its allies," the report charges.

After the Gulf War ended in 1991, estimates of Iraqi military casualties (deaths and injuries) rose as high as 100,000. But research by government agencies, private researchers, and the media eventually discredited such figures. For one thing, many Iraqi military units turned out to have been at much less than full strength before the war started. It's still a controversial subject, but most experts now say Iraqi casualties probably amounted to several thousand.

Since then, Iraqi reports of many civilian deaths tied to UN sanctions - especially those of small children - have become suspect as well.

Based on past experience, some observers are also suspicious of US assertions. Prior to the Gulf War, a Kuwait teenager testified to Congress that she witnessed Iraqi troops taking infants from incubators and leaving them to die.

It turned out that the girl - the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US - had never worked at the hospital, and that a Washington public relations firm had arranged her testimony to build political support for US intervention.

In any case, the US - and whatever allies it can muster - are likely to be especially careful to avoid "collateral damage."

American officials do not want to repeat such mistakes as the bombing of an air-raid shelter in Baghdad that killed upwards of 300 people, the bombing of the Chinese embassy and a passenger train in Belgrade, and the attacks on a wedding party and Red Cross facilities in Afghanistan.

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