nastasya: the u.s. launched its so-called war on terror in the wake of 9/11. invasions of afghanistan and iraq followed, with huge loss of life. instability spread across many parts of the middle east. so what's been true impact? this is "inside story." ♪ nastasya: hello there and welcome to the program. i'm nastasya tay. after u.s. president george w. bush launched what he labeled the "war on terror" in 2001, for

people in countries like afghanistan and iraq, years of violence, death, destruction and political instability were to follow. thousands were also detained and illegally taken to other countries, many tortured or subjected to brutal treatment and held for years without trial. resistance grew and pushed the u.s. and nato out of afghanistan two years ago. a new investigation from a top u.s. university says more than 4.5 million people died directly or indirectly from the so-called "war on terror." we'll be discussing its legacy with the report's author and our guests in just a few moments. but first, this report from alexandra byers on how it all began. reporter: it has been more than two decades since the 9/11 attacks. [shouting] reporter: that morning was followed by two devastating and costly wars. in november 2001, the u.s. led an international coalition to invade afghanistan, accusing the

taliban of harboring al qaeda fighters. it launched a huge bombing campaign and a ground operation. [explosions] tens of thousands of people were killed and millions more displaced. in 2003, the u.s. attacked iraq as part of its so-called war on terror, accusing its leader of stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. >> saddam hussein and his regime will stop at nothing until something stops him. reporter: the war plunged the country into sectarian violence and toppled saddam hussein. the weapons of mass destruction were never found. >> major combat operations in iraq have ended. in the battle of iraq, the united states and our allies have prevailed. [gunfire] reporter: george bush's declaration of victory was made before the worst violence in iraq was yet to come. the legacy of both invasions

brought disastrous consequences for people in the region, but the so-called war on terror was never declared over, and wounds it inflicted had not healed. [shouting] [explosion] reporter: a new study by the costs of war project at brown university estimates the post -9/11 wars and their ongoing impact have led to more than 4.5 million deaths. the scope of the report includes conflicts in places like pakistan, syria, somalia and yemen. there are no official statistics for the numbers who died in the so-called war on terror, but the report says there are more indirect deaths than combat fatalities. indirect deaths are blamed on things like the breakdown of economic, environmental and psychological conditions. more than 20 years since the war in afghanistan, the taliban are back in power after a hasty us and nato withdrawal almost two years ago.

international donors have frozen afghan bank reserves and its health system is on the brink of collapse. the report asks, in a place like afghanistan, can any death today be considered unrelated to the u.s. war? and what long-lasting impact will continue to have on these countries? alexandra byers for "inside story." ♪ nastasya: let's bring in our guests. in new york, stephanie savell, the co-director of the costs of war nonpartisan research project , a based at the watson institute for international and public affairs at brown university and an author of the report. in manchester in the united kingdom, ruba ali al-hassani. a postdoctoral research fellow, at lancaster university and also co-founder of iraqi women academics network. and in bethesda, maryland, michael o"hanlon, senior fellow and director of research in foreign policy at the brookings institution.

a very warm welcome to all of you, and thanks for joining us today on "inside story." stephanie, this is your report so i will start with you. more than 4.5 million deaths. that is a really startling number. it is obviously something very difficult to quantify. how did you get to that number? guest: this is something that the cost of war -- that costs of war project has been working on for years. i have built on the work of colleagues of mine at the project. for a long time, my colleague has generated and regularly updated an estimate of direct debt, people killed through weapons of war, through fire, the actual combat of war. that now is up to 937,000. that is the range she estimates of direct deaths. so my report builds on that.

it uses a ratio from the geneva declaration secretariat that current day wars, there is an estimate of about four indirect deaths for every direct death. i dug in very deeply to research across many fields, including epidemiology and public health research, and basically this is the best, latest information that is out there. ideally, in an ideal scenario, there would be teams of researchers on the ground, local researchers doing access mortality studies, going house to house, doing surveys of who has died in the past x number of years to get a better, more precise figure. but in the absence of those studies, those are really hard to do in war zones, absence of birth and death certificates and other sorts of basic senses data, this kind of ratio is the

best that is out there. that was how we generated the 4.5 million figure. that h -- nastasya: the so-called "war on terror" itself is a bit of a nebulous concept. can i ask how you chose the conflicts that you have included? guest: this is something that is also drawing on the costs of war project framing. over 60 scholars at this point from around the world. we have said, the u.s. counterterrorism has played a role not just in afghanistan, pakistan and iraq. those were the u.s.-led wars in those places. but also, a very significant role in syria, yemen, somalia, libya and other places increasingly. the footprint of the u.s. so-called "war on terror" continues. this is a framing that tries to look very comprehensively at, of course these conflicts are incredibly complex, we are not

saying the u.s. is only responsible party, we are merely pointing to the fact that there has been an intensification of the violence as a result of u.s. counterterrorism efforts. the report is an attempt to come to terms and grapple with that sense of responsibility. nastasya: sure. ruba, i understand you were born in the diaspora, but you've been working with people in iraq on the ground there for many years. do any of these numbers surprise you? guest: no, the numbers are not surprising. they are damning, if anything. i am tempted to think the numbers may be even higher, that these may be, for lack of a better word, conservative. just like stephanie said that, you know, there are many deaths that are unrecorded, meaning. -- many missing people who are unrecorded, i am currently working on a project on enforced disappearances in iraq, so

that is another issue that has been a tremendously problematic aspect of life that many iraqis have had to endure since 2003. so the numbers make sense and i assume they are much more especially in countries like afghanistan and syria now with its own conflict going on. nastasya: michael, turning to you, i know that you have previously said that the so-called "war on terror," for all of its failures has had a , number of limited successes, accidental as some of them may actually be. but that success, as you described it, has been specifically about preventing attacks on american soil, but this is that the trade-off, right? 4.5 million deaths? guest: first of all, i want to congratulate stephanie and her colleagues at the watson center. they've done very good work over the years at reminding us that we have to take a broader perspective in understanding the consequences of war. and i generally agree with most of the methodologies. we can talk about some specifics in a minute.

but let me make that point. secondly, you are correct to argue or to summarize the ratings that i have done to say that, when we think about the 22-year campaign against salafism or however you'd like to describe the broader al qaeda and related movements around the world, the united states and its western allies have generally been fairly fortunate in that the number of subsequent attacks on american or even european soil has been quite modest compared to the fears we all had after 9/11. and, of course, there have been some attacks, most notably some of the isis attacks in europe in the middle part of the last decade, but generally speaking, if you want to do a plus-minus cost assessment of the so-called "war on terror," which may not be a good term, but it is often still employed, i think we have to say that western countries have done pretty well at protecting themselves, certainly

from anything like the catastrophic terror we saw on 9/11. even in spain in 2004 or london in 2005, or the other attacks in bali, indonesia in 2002, but i -- stephanie does very well, as well as our colleague in london to remind people. and of course in the broader middle east, people do not need reminding. that these words have had huge human consequences. and that war itself, because it breaks down society, because it breaks down healthcare, it impedes proper nutrition, it impedes economic growth. it therefore contributes to a lot of indirect deaths that wind up outnumbering direct combat deaths. when stephanie is right, just to remind people, it is roughly this 4-1 ratio. it is a very rough and crude number. it is an average across many different countries and conflicts. but the general message is correct -- that war leads to far more indirect consequences than we even seek directly on our tv screens. that is a tragedy of conflict.

it should make anyone wary of war. one last thing. bearing in mind that the iraq of saddam hussein was hardly a peaceful place, bearing in mind that the afghanistan of the taliban was hardly a successful country and is hardly successful today, that these excess deaths that we're talking about often would have been occurring even without the u.s.-led interventions. and i know stephanie is quick to underscore that she is not simply blaming the united states or its broader war on terror for all of these casualties. but when we think about excess deaths, having looked at iraq under saddam in his quarter-century of terrible role, or the taliban in afghanistan, with the kind of health care systems and oppression of women's rights and limitations on economic progress that they imposed, it is not as if these places would have had

peaceful and happy futures if they had been left on their own trajectories. the last point i would say, however, is that libya strikes me as a place that probably would have done better without us. that probably would have truly been, despite muammar gaddafi's barbaric acts at times against limitations and his own barbaric acts at times against his own people, libya was a semi-functioning country during his rule and it's been worse since our 2011 intervention. so again, we have to bear down case by case, but i agree with the overall thrust. thank you. nastasya: i want to bring in ruba in here because it looked very much like she wanted to respond to you there, michael. guest: i think the key point in what michael has said is that the west has been capable of protecting itself. that is the keyword. itself. since 2003, not just iraq and afghanistan, but the entire middle east and parts of west asia have been unprotected and have been violated over and over in various ways, whether it is

murder or rape or torture or continued legacy and reverberations of this violence that continues in various forms. until this day, children are born in fallujah in a rack with congenital birth defects because of white phosphorous use and depleted uranium in iraq. those are weapons -- white phosphorus is an illegal chemical used in warfare. the rest has certainly protected itself, but it has violated an entire region. again i have to emphasize the word violate. abu ghraib is a good example of a violation of a country's dignity, of a people's humanity. iraqis degraded in dehumanized over and over. i cannot speak only about iraq, people have been dehumanized and

degraded over again. refugees from the region who have traveled to the west, which are now safer. once again, dehumanized and degraded at the borders and treated as lesser beings. we have seen this happen over and over. and i will go back to the term forced disappearances. because when someone is forcefully disappeared, we still don't know if they are alive or dead. it has been occurring since 2003, in iraq, more than one million people at forcefully disappeared. we don't know if they are alive or dead. the emphasis on -- nastasya: i do want to get on the very pervasive legacy here of the conflicts that we are talking about in a moment, but before that, i want to ask stephanie about this ratio, this

1:4, direct or indirect deaths ratio. that ratio, as michael said, varies hugely. in developed countries, you might have fewer indirect deaths, but in poorer populations, huge numbers in terms of that ratio. vulnerable populations are at more risk, stephanie. guest: that's right, that is what i found when i dug into it. when i first started this project, i found that is an issue of some debate, but what i found was exactly that, kind of the more impoverished a population is to begin with, the worse effect of the war will have, and that really makes sense when you think about people displaced forcefully by violence. actually there is a correlation of indirect death, not with

refugees necessarily, because once people get outside their country's borders, sometimes they have more access to the very minimum of food and health care, for example. but primarily for internally displaced people, there is a significant correlation between higher rates of indirect death caused by war and people who are forcefully displaced within their country's borders. these post-09/11 words have seen people displaced, millions. so it is really about lack of access to the most basic, fundamental things that one needs to sustain health and life like clean drinking water, access to proper sewage treatment. access to food. basic food. hospitals get bombed, people don't have access to doctors, access to vaccinations. all of these things get distracted by war and that is what the paper was trying to point to. there are these pathways of

reverberating effects that are not talked about enough, and that need to be included in a frame of the cost of war. nastasya: of course, one thing leads to another. i was surprised in reading the report about how little things like broken traffic lights or the state of roads can lead to many deaths when you talk about the infrastructure damage left after the war. it seems obvious when you think about it, but i don't think it is something people necessarily calculate as part of the cost of war. guest: 2010 22013 or so, there were as many if not more deaths from traffic utilities as from the conflict itself, from 2013 0 to 2013. nastasya: one of your other findings is that young children suffer the most indirect deaths. meditation, disease, perhaps that is not a surprise, but also women. ruba, i wonder if that resonates

with the experiences of the people that you work with. guest: if i may revisit a point made earlier and then i will answer your question, there was a comparison made between iraq during saddam's regime and iraq today, and the comparison has been made many times by various people over the past few years claiming that iraq is a much safer place today than it was during the saddam era. that comparison cannot be made for various reasons, because there used to be a dictatorship, and now it is not a dictatorship by one party or one person, it is an authoritarian regime run by a number of political parties who are working together towards oppressing the people. like in saddam's time, one could claim that it was a stable country, a claim that many have made to defend the ba'athist

regime. let us assume time we have groups going around the country killing and kidnapping people. we have had da'esh kill and rape. many yazidi women and girls are still missing because of this invasion. when the u.s. went into iraq and dissolved the iraqi army and the borders became porous, which invaded terrorist groups into iraq -- the invasion is directly related to many problems that iraqi society is experiencing still. nastasya: and it is not only the specific iraqi experience but in a number of other countries as well where there has in a number of groups that have arisen within the space and with anti-western sentiment that all of this has created. i know that the biden administration has been very vocal about going to move away from this counterterrorism

strategy, so to speak. michael, i am curious with the feeling is like in washington these days, because it does feel like biden does not talk about the so-called "war on terror anymore, but at the same time, we are still seeing airstrikes. when taylor moore remains open 21 years later. is the so-called war -- guantanamo remains open 21 years later. is the so-called "war on terror" a secret? guest: first of all, i take stephanie's point profoundly that it is far to say that the invasion of iraq did any net good. but we should bear in mind that iraq under saddam hussein was a terrible place. with saddam hussein still in power and his sons waiting in the wings to succeed him, it is hard to believe that iraq was headed in a peaceful or prosperous direction or even a safe place for its own people. i would keep that in mind. i am not defending the invasion and certainly not defending

though it was done. i do take her point on that. in terms of whether we wanted to get away from this, yeah, you are largely right. and it is partly because there is nothing to brag about. for other reasons we have been discussing, these wars have not turned out well. the middle east is not in better shape. it's not clear that it would have been in better shape if we had stayed out. . the middle east is a place where the united states and its allies remain challenged to find any policy that really contributes a net positive benefit, and relative neglect seems to be perhaps therefore the overall approach we settle on, where we do just enough to keep her friends like the king of jordan, and countries like oman and israel stable and safe, and we look for the least bad way to handle iran. and for the least onerous way, least demanding way to handle terrorism whenever the threats

appear to be great enough that we have to go in and do something for our own well-being , but otherwise just trying to empower and aid our original partners as they handle the bulk of the job, a job that is clearly not yet done. stabilizing this part of the world is clearly not yet done. nastasya: michael, you say "handling the bulk of the job" but also taking then the bulk of the human costs too. guest: no doubt. you are correct. when i say "handling the job" i should be clear and fair that it is not just handling al qaeda and isis, it is also just trying to stabilize their country. stephanie wrote about yemen for example, that is not necessarily a war that i blame the united states for being the primary cause of, but it is a war that should break all of our hearts as we continue to see this extreme impoverished country which has a lot of killing going on but even more so, a complete

inability to rebuild the kind of health, education, sanitation capabilities needed to keep people alive in general. so there is a lot to do. not just counterterrorism. you are right, that costs are being borne primarily by the leaders in the region. nastasya: let's take a look at how the u.s. can, move forward specifically the u.s. when it comes to accountability and responsibility. congress passed the authorization of the use of military force against those responsible for 9/11, but i believe the groups and individuals covered under that are not specified so the public does not know who america is actually fighting. stephanie, you have said in your report that this is not just about allocating blame, but you talk about a sense of moral responsibility. what do you envision that looking like? guest: yes. i do want to respond to michael's point about the pentagon and the u.s. government is talking a lot about shifting

strategic focus from counterterrorism to great power competition, but that doesn't match the actual footprint of the u.s. counterterror apparatus which is still in over 85 countries around the world. what i think we need to do is talk less about strategy and kind of shift that can be made, and really more about the big picture questioning, big picture critical thinking about u.s. militarism and u.s. foreign policy which is, does the u.s. really have a role to play in these kinds of conflicts? often times, i think even things that sound as innocuous as u.s. security assistance -- i have done research on the ground in west africa and you know, the funding and training and so forth for local forces that the u.s. has done has arguably intensified the

violence. these are incredibly complex conflicts. i think we need to rethink things that are really basic level. part of that is starting a conversation about reparations and about reconstruction and about the imperative of humanitarian assistance. given this kind of magnitude, the scale and the scope of suffering that has been caused, what then is a moral response? as individual americans, as a society and as a government, as our military, what do -- nastasya: stephanie, i am going to interrupt you there because i do want to hear from rubna on your idea of reparations. would that be enough? guest: no, reparations are not enough, in fact, it would open the door reparations claims from

many countries in the road against the u.s. for its various violations. we need to address what u.s. foreign policy means when it uses the word "allies, or "friends." for example, today's iraq is safer than saddam's iraq, but today's iraqi politicians use the same methods that the ba'athist regime did. they are just as violent as the regime. they actually enjoyed hands with saddam at some point. so the question is, how do you define an ally, how do you define a friend, what kind of interventions are ok and what are not? i would argue that all interventions are wrong at this point. the u.s. should have learned its lessons from the iraqi experience, from the afghanistan experience. i think we need to respect the agency of the people in these countries and their ability to fight terrorism.

when they do require assistance in the war against terrorism, then other countries can offer it, but reparations is one way to go. although i know, like i said, it's not going to happen. not in our lifetime. nastasya: so much of this is about trust and agency. it does feel like there is a conversation about interventionism and whether or not that is a good idea going on in washington, d.c. we will be following that here on al jazeera, but we will have to leave our discussion there today. thank you to our guests, stephanie several, michael o'hanlon and ruba ali al-hassani. and thank you, too, for watching. you can see the program again anytime by visiting our website, aljazeera.com. and for further discussion, go to our facebook page. that is facebook.com/ajinsidestory. you can also join the conversation on twitter. our handle is @ajinsidestory. from me, nastasya tay and the whole team here in doha, bye, for now. ♪

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