Larry Minear is director of the Humanitarianism and War Project at Tufts University in Massachusetts. He writes that the United States could better achieve its objectives without launching an attack on Iraq, which is likely to cause a humanitarian catastrophe that would frustrate U.S. political and security hopes in the region

In the countdown to a U.S.-led war against Iraq, attention is belatedly focusing on the plight of Iraqi civilians and on the extent to which their security and well-being is central to the success of the war's stated political objectives. A trip to Switzerland in early March dramatised the little-understood connection.

Switzerland may seem an unlikely place from which to contemplate the humanitarian and political implications of a war in the Middle East.

However, Geneva, "the humanitarian capital of the world," is the home of a number of United Nations humanitarian and human rights agencies, the headquarters of the International Red Cross, and the location of non-governmental aid groups and associations.

The Swiss government is also the repository of the Geneva Conventions and Protocols, the accepted legal framework that spells out how wars should be fought and civilians protected.

Last month, Switzerland convened a humanitarian meeting on Iraq, bringing together officials from 24 governments and 20 aid organisations to highlight the vulnerability of Iraqi civilians in an eventual war (the U.S. government declined to attend). Already that meeting has resulted in constructive steps to prepare for what could nevertheless still be a humanitarian catastrophe.

Two weeks ago the Swiss government's humanitarian aid department held its annual public meeting on the contribution of humanitarian aid to greater human security. Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey brought the topic directly to bear on the looming war with Iraq.

"It is said that a war in Iraq is necessary to bring more security in order to protect us from the possible use of weapons of mass destruction," she observed.

"But there is a legitimate question whether in addition to concerns about the affected civilian population, the result will not instead be the creation of many new uncertainties, the further spread of international terrorism, and perhaps even the use of prohibited biological or chemical weapons." Indeed, the war cannot but cause grave harm to civilians, undermining its own stated political and security objectives. The humanitarian risks and costs themselves are likely to be staggering.

The well-being of the civilian population has been severely weakened by more than a decade of U.N. sanctions, a "weapon of mass destruction" kept in place largely by pressure from the United States and the United Kingdom (Saddam Hussein's policies are of course implicated as well).

Some 60 percent of Iraqis now depend on food provided from outside through supply lines that may be disrupted by the war. Water, sanitation, and health services, already precarious, would also be vulnerable to bombing-related disruption of electrical power generators and lines.

International aid organisations are alarmed. Many will withdraw expatriate staff in the coming days, leaving activities in the hands of local staffs.

They also fear for the security of expatriates once they return to Iraq. Fallout from the perception of a war against a largely Muslim population could also have repercussions well beyond Iraq's borders.

Some agencies are already implementing heightened security measures for their operations in Muslim countries on other continents.

Meanwhile, the U.N. humanitarian apparatus is torn between trying to proceed with its normal humanitarian mission and damaging its integrity by functioning as "handmaiden" of the United States in a mop-up operation to an avoidable war.

U.S. military planners are reported to have accepted the responsibilities of an occupying power under the Geneva Conventions.

Yet there is some question whether the Pentagon has taken seriously the likely magnitude of civilian needs, immediate and longer term, that will require attention.

The dearth of adequate preparation by the United Nations and NGOs, in part due to a lack of cooperation from the U.S., lends added importance to the American military's own capacity to assist and protect Iraqi civilians.

Also open to question is the prevailing Washington assumption that if the U.S. shoulders most of the costs of the war, other countries (and the promptly resumed sale of Iraqi oil) will underwrite the major longer-term costs of reconstruction.

As war approaches, statements by the Bush administration are stressing the humanitarian and human rights gains that successful U.S.-led military action will accomplish in Iraq and the region.

This is not the first U.S. administration to make noble objectives the frosting on a national security cake. The icing is likely to receive another layer during the war with the distribution of "humanitarian daily rations" in even larger numbers than darkened the skies over Afghanistan when the administration sought to conjure a humanitarian rubric for the military confrontation with the Taliban and al Qaeda.

It would be naïve to expect the policy of the United States -- or even Switzerland -- to be shaped exclusively by humanitarian considerations.

In this particular instance, however, the stated objectives of bringing democracy to Iraq and the Middle East require immediate and durable improvements in the health and well-being of ordinary Iraqis.

Given that challenge, a decision to stay the American sword would arguably avoid a heightened humanitarian catastrophe and with it the frustration of U.S. political and security hopes in the region and around the globe.