Measuring the human cost of the war on terror

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March 2002

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Measuring the human cost of the war on terror
A University of New Hampshire economics professor estimates that as many as 3,959 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan since the October 7 beginning of the American bombing campaign against the Taliban. Using "conservative methods" to evaluate the number of civilian casualties so far in the "war on terror," Professor Marc Herold has produced two studies of civilian casualties between October 7 and December 29. To put the death toll in perspective, the number of casualites Herold estimates have occured in Afghanistan—with a population less than one-tenth of the United States'—would be proportional to almost 40,000 U.S. civilian deaths.

Why conduct such a gruesome tally? Herold told the Houston Chronicle that the lack of coverage of "the carnage on the ground" has shaped the public's perception of the fighting. "The war has been presented to the American people as a techno-video war in which smart bombs always hit their targets. In other words, the bad guys die and none of the good guys do," said Herold, whose research and teaching focuses on third-world economic and social development. "But there have been a significant number of civilian casualties."

The Pentagon has been reluctant to talk about civilian deaths in Afghanistan and keeps no tally. Aid groups such as the International Committee of the Red Cross say the violence makes accurate counts difficult, but the ICRC has buried hundreds of people around battle sites including Mazar-e-Sharif and Kandahar.

Herold teaches in the Departments of Economics and Women's Studies at the Whittemore School of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire. He culled information from news agencies, major newspapers, and first-hand accounts, then cross-tabulated the results. For each day since October 7 he has maintained a list of the number of casualties, location, type of weapon used, and source(s) of information. Whenever he could not find the reports in agreement on the numbers, he chose the smaller one, and he did not count those who died later from wounds nor as a subsequent result of damage to the civilian infrastructure, like hospitals, relief agencies, or water systems. As a result his admittedly rough tally of deaths may actually represent an undercount of the actual toll, which he says may be as high as 5,000.

There has been little coverage of Herold's work in the U.S., but Houston Chronicle (12/21/01) editorial writers commented: "Herold's data should lead us to a fuller discussion of a number of questions: How precise are our precision weapons, which account for about 60 percent of the bombs being dropped? What about the effects of the conventional 'dumb' bombs that make up the other 40 percent? What are the effects on civilians of indiscriminate weapons such as cluster bombs, which Human Rights Watch has argued should be banned? Are the military's methods an indication that U.S. planners simply don’t value the lives of Third World people?"

The study has at least generated some interest in the international press, including the Irish Times, the Times of London, the Guardian (UK), and the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), which wrote on January 12, 2002: "Dr. Herold says the strategy of using air strikes to support local ground forces is designed to minimise American casualties without regard to civilian deaths. Only one American soldier has died from enemy fire. 'The critical element remains the very low value put upon Afghan civilian lives by U.S. military planners and the political elite, as clearly revealed by the U.S. willingness to bomb heavily populated regions."

For more information:
Herold's study
Media coverage

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