Eric Hooglund

About the Author: Eric Hooglund is an editor of Middle East Report, a bimonthly magazine that analyzes events in the region.

The human toll of the Persian Gulf war—as many as 100,000 deaths, five million displaced persons, and over $200 billion in property damage— ranks this conflict as the single most devastating event in the Middle East since World War I. At least three times as many people were killed during both the eight-year Iran-Iraq War and the 13-year civil war in Afghanistan, but the loss of life in those conflicts was spread over many years. In contrast, the majority of deaths in the most recent war occurred in a six-week period, commencing with the start of the American-led bombing campaign in mid-January 1991 and ending with the one-hundred-hour-long ground...