The mounting list of casualties in this conflict is a salutary corrective to the modern view of War by The Independent 4:22pm 28th Mar, 2003   27 March 2003    At least 14 dead and 30 injured: this was the toll from two missiles that struck a market in a residential area of northern Baghdad yesterday, two American missiles gone astray. Invaluable propaganda for Saddam Hussein and his regime, the graphic scenes of death and despair will also have brought home the brutal reality of war to every television viewer – and newspaper reader – around the world.    In the impassioned debates that preceded the first strikes on Iraq, we were assured by our politicians that two guiding principles would be observed. First, they promised that great efforts would be made to minimise civilian casualties. This was to be an operation directed against the regime of Saddam Hussein, not against the people of Iraq; it was intended to liberate and not to conquer. Second, they expressed confidence that the war, once embarked upon, would soon be won.    These undertakings doubtless helped to limit the anti-war rebellion in Parliament. They may also have softened at least some of the public hostility to the conflict once it had begun. In fact, though, each contained a contradiction. If Iraq really constituted as deadly a threat to world security as the Prime Minister and others had warned, why were they so confident that a war could be swiftly won? And if the campaign proved to be harder and longer than had been hoped, if victory could only be won at the price of many casualties, could the imperative of sparing civilians really be honoured?    Now, with the war a week old and casualties – including civilians – mounting, these questions need to be posed, even if they cannot fully be answered.    It is already clear that the impression given by our politicians that the regime of Saddam could be removed swiftly and almost without bloodshed was at best wishful thinking and at worst a deliberate effort to delude. The prospects of such an outcome have narrowed by the day. If only Saddam had definitely been killed in the first "targeted strike", if the port of Umm Qasr had been handed to the US and British without a fight, if the people of Basra had spontaneously welcomed the forces as liberators, if they had risen against their Baath Party rulers... If only just one of those plans had been realised – but it was not.    US, British and Australian forces are now having to fight their way against Iraqi resistance – both concentrated and sporadic – all the way to Baghdad. The battles at the strategic crossing points of the Euphrates at Nasiriyah and at Najaf have each left dozens of Iraqi dead and hundreds of wounded. Conservative figures for those killed in air-raids on Baghdad stand at around 100. The number of dead and wounded among the allied forces is infinitely smaller at fewer than 50 so far, but the numbers mount daily.    The initial response to the lengthening casualty lists is likely to be stiffened resolve, on both sides. The Iraqi response to the yesterday's market explosion was outrage, not defection. For the time being the losses are an effective propaganda tool for the regime; they are not yet a liability, although they could become one.    Here in Britain, the point at which the number of casualties, either civilians or combatants, becomes politically unacceptable will be far lower. This was, and remains, an unpopular war, and the more casualties there are on either side, the more the outright opponents of the war will feel vindicated. As a nation, however, we have traditionally had a relatively high tolerance of military casualties. There has long been an acceptance, born of the experience of two world wars, that military conflicts are brutal and servicemen are wounded and killed. By those standards, the casualties so far in Iraq have been low – and we hope that they remain so.    None the less there have been casualties, the majority so far in accidents or so-called "friendly fire". And the lack of public support for going to war at all means that the threshold of tolerance will be reached much sooner than it was, for instance, in the Falklands War, where the cause was patently just and drew on strong feelings of patriotism. A rapidly escalating number of Iraqi casualties could also become a political risk, calling into question the good faith of those who promised a short war with minimal casualties. Even if civilian casualties are few relative to the number of Iraqi troops killed, a point will come when the slaughter is compared to the one-sided "turkey-shoot" that effectively ended the Gulf War 12 years ago.    Well before that point of excess has been reached, however, this war – with its televised carnage in real-time – could destroy a growing misconception. Almost a generation has grown up in this country with experience only of victorious wars fought in incontrovertibly good causes and, crucially, with minimal casualties. The British interventions in former Yugoslavia, to keep the peace in Bosnia and to protect Kosovar Albanians expelled by Slobodan Milosevic, were almost free of casualties. Strictly as a military and humanitarian operation, the intervention in Afghanistan was successful beyond all expectations.    Those largely benevolent and successful uses of military force, encountered in mainly sanitised, televisual form, are the only acquaintance that some people now have with war. No wonder, perhaps, that military force, used judiciously, is now seen in some quarters as a force for good, and an appropriate tool of power. Whether or not the war in Iraq is, as US and British commanders insist, going entirely "according to plan", the graphic images of death and destruction from Baghdad provide a salutary corrective.    28 March 2003    Thousands flee Basra in search of food and water By David Fox and Paul Harris in Basra.(Published in the Independent UK)    Thousands of tired and thirsty civilians trudged out of the besieged southern Iraqi city of Basra yesterday in a desperate search for food and water.    Families drove ramshackle vehicles or walked in single file down a rail track past British Army checkpoints on the western side of the city.    "It's been 'pow, pow, pow' all the time," said Maklim Mohammed as he crossed a main bridge leading south from the city, which stands at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates. "I can't stand it. I'm nervous and I'm thirsty."    Basra's 1.5 million inhabitants have endured days without water. Red Cross engineers have managed amid the battles around the city partly to restore a water treatment centre that had been down since last Friday when cables carrying electricity to the plant were cut by Allied bombardment. But most homes still have no access to potable water. People have resorted to collecting water from rivers around the city, which are polluted with sewage, prompting warnings from the UN of a potential cholera epidemic. Children are at risk from diarrhoea, which is already a big killer of Iraqi children under five.    Most of those leaving yesterday were on foot without their belongings, apparently seeking shelter with friends or relatives at Zubayr, 12 miles to the south. Most were men who said they would try to return to Basra if they could find supplies.    "We are very thirsty. Our families are very thirsty," one of those leaving said. "Where can we find water? The British told us to go down the road [south]."    In Zubayr the position was only marginally better. British and American troops handed out bottled water to an agitated crowd who begged them for more. Many said they had not had water for almost 10 days.    British troops stopped and searched those leaving Basra and individuals who aroused suspicion, or were wearing military clothes, were held for questioning in pens of barbed wire.    The refugees described a city that was tense but still in the grip of an Iraqi military that had hidden large amounts of artillery and tanks in civilian and commercial areas.    One British officer said, "It wouldn't be a bad thing if the whole population left for a day or two and left the bad guys behind for us."    Compiled from pooled reports. Visit the related web page
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