What does war mean for women and families in Iraq?
The Bush Administration wants to bomb Baghdad, a city of five million people. This would cause a humanitarian catastrophe equivalent to a heavy air bombardment of Los Angeles. A November report by the global health organization Medact estimates that at least 50,000 civilians are likely to be killed by a US attack (www.medact.org/tbx/pages/section.cfm?index_id=2) . Many more civilians are likely to die from longer-term effects of a bombing, including environmental damage and the destruction of food supplies, agriculture and critical infrastructure, such as pharmaceutical plants and hospitals. Remind people that this war is broader than the attack now being planned by the Bush Administration. It includes the combined impact of the 1991 Desert Storm bombing and the 12 years of sanctions and intermittent bombing since then. British and US forces have bombed Iraq more than 50 times this year alone and killed over 500 people since 1999. What has been the impact of US-led sanctions and bombin
