Up to Four Million Could Die If the US Unleashes War on Iraq: British Medical Organization
As USA and its allies are preparing to unleash a deadly attck on Iraq a British-based health organization revealed a report with shocking numbers.
A report titled, “Collateral Damage” was composed by Medact, a British organization of health professionals. The report predicts the loss of human life as a result of a joint US-British attack on Iraq and the three months to follow. Nearly half a million people would die as a result of the war, the report says, mostly civilians. NewScientist.com, a leading science and technology news service conveyed that the organization’s report was commended by “both medical and military specialists.”
The organization estimates that the war on Iraq would begin with a period of air attacks, then a ground invasion that would culminate to the toppling of the Iraqi government. While the direction of the American war strategy is expected to follow a similar scenario, the number of victims seems to generate little discussion among governments and in the media.
“It is really important that the people understand the consequences of war,” said Vivienne Nathanson, head of the 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.”
“Even in the cleanest, most limited conflicts, people die and people suffer,” she added.
But a war on Iraq is by no means expected to be “clean”. An estimated 260,000 could die in the conflict and the three months that follows, as a direct result of the war. An additional 260,000 are likely to perish from famine and disease, the report said. If the US plans of internal conflict in Iraq worked as sharp as hoped for by the military establishment, at least 20,000 deaths would be added to the already giant number of casualties.
The number is by no means exaggerated, according to General Pete Gration, former Chief of the Australian Defense Forces. “This is no exaggerated tract by a bunch of zealots. It’s a coldly factual report by health professionals who draw on the best evidence available.”
In the first Gulf War, in 1991, at least 200,000 people died, mostly Iraqi civilians. The report however expects a much higher death toll in the coming war.
The worst and best case scenarios are equally alarming, the report indicates. A nuclear attack on Iraq, under the pretext of Iraq’s biological warfare threat to Israel or Kuwait, could kill up to 3.9 million people.
The “best case” scenario of a very short war, although unlikely according to military experts, would result in the death of 10,000 people, “more than three times the number who died on September 11,” the report concluded.
November 13 2002