The public health cost of war in Iraq: Lesson from post war Lebanon. p.13

Since March 2003, the United States has been at war in Iraq, with tens of thousands of US and Iraqi casualties. However, the casualties of war and the embodied suffering of the Iraqi people cannot be measured only by body counts. War takes its toll on public health in numerous direct and indirect ways. This paper looks at six major public health costs of war (physical, mental, reproductive/demographic, social structural, infrastructural, environmental), examining how these have played out in the aftermath of a 15-year civil war in Lebanon (1975-1990). Although the causes and magnitude of the current war in Iraq are different, this article uses the example of neighboring Lebanon to examine the public health consequences of war in Iraq, including such controversial issues as the effects of depleted uranium (DU) on human health and debates over the number of Iraqi civilian casualties.