AMY GOODMAN: And antiwar protests are continuing throughout the world. But before we go to those, we are going to go to Baghdad, where the Center for Economic and Social Rights has released a major report highlighting the human costs of a war against Iraq, the report warning U.S. military forces may commit war crimes by deliberately destroying essential civilian life support systems.

Hans von Sponeck is on the line with us, the former humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, who resigned his position three years ago to protest the international policy toward Iraq, including sanctions. He’s in Baghdad as a special envoy to the Center for Economic and Social Rights.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Hans von Sponeck.

HANS VON SPONECK: Good morning to you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Can you just very briefly — we will go into this more extensively in the coming days — tell us the findings of your report and trip?

HANS VON SPONECK: Well, you know, this is a multipronged approach here, and the research team represents one component. And the picture that they painted to both Iraqi as well as foreign journalists was one of fragility of the existing infrastructure. The distribution infrastructure, the health infrastructure wouldn’t withstand, and the pressures that a war would bring. And they outlined what would happen in terms of water supply, electricity, the food distribution, which at the moment, under the Oil-for-Food Program, works adequately well, would very quickly disappear and endanger the physical survival of at least 10 million, if not more, Iraqis. This figure is, by the way, also a figure that is used by the United Nations in their confidential contingency planning reports.

AMY GOODMAN: One in your group, professor Ron Waldman from Columbia University School of Public Health, has been saying, “In some ways, Iraq has become like a vast refugee camp. The population survives largely on food rations and depends on a fragile public health system that’s extremely vulnerable.” Can you elaborate?

HANS VON SPONECK: Well, I think this applies, for many years now, on the sanction regime, which has all the limitations that one would have as a refugee in a camp — no normal education system and no employment. In a refugee camp, people don’t work. In Iraq also, people don’t work. At least many are out of work. Sixty to 70% is the estimate. So it has all the characteristics of an unnatural life of the kind that one needs if one is confined to a refugee camp.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, as the team members from the Center for Economic and Social Rights return back to the United States, we’ll look more extensively at the findings. Hans von Sponeck, thank you very much for joining us from Iraq. And as I said, antiwar protests continuing around the world. In Washington, thousands gathered Tuesday in front of the Capitol for the Sorry State of the Union rally and concert. In Madison, Wisconsin, nearly 2,000 packed a local theater for an antiwar gathering. Yesterday in Grand Rapids, Michigan, about 1,000 people braved the cold and snowy weather for several hours to protest a visit by President Bush. And at Shannon Airport in Ireland, 50-year-old peace activist Mary Kelly was arrested for attacking a U.S. Navy plane with a hammer. She caused over a half a million dollars in damage and forced the plane to be grounded. It was headed to the Middle East. For our break, we go to the sounds of a protest in Colorado outside the offices of military contractor Halliburton, Halliburton being the largest oil services corporation in the world, formerly headed by now-Vice President Dick Cheney. Three hundred people marched there on Monday to protest against war; 21 were arrested. This was recorded by Brian Cousins of KGNU.