ANN ARBOR— What is Iraq’s strategy for prevailing against the United States?

“Saddam Hussein has said America is a country unwilling to accept casualties,” said Jonathan Marwil, a University of Michigan history lecturer who teaches a course on war.

Stocks tumbled and media coverage became far less upbeat after the first U.S. troops were killed and captured, showing signs the war with Iraq would not go as swiftly as some predicted. And what if troops are exposed to a chemical attack? Would U.S. public opinion tolerate a bloody, house-to-house battle for Baghdad that could leave more than 1,000 U.S. troops dead?

“I think the American public will accept these sorts of numbers,” Marwil said of predictions of possible high casualties. “They’ll accept them unless they don’t find any weapons of mass destruction after the war is over. The $64 question is will Iraq use poison gas?”

Poison gas was used during World War I and largely banned. Marwil said very few people know that poison gas, used by Iraq against its Kurdish population, was also used extensively in the 1920s by the Spanish in Morocco.

“The American public is very uninformed about war,” Marwil said. Numerous times in history, including during the Civil War and World War I, nations have gotten into wars thinking they would be short. The wars, however, have escalated and lasted far longer, causing more casualties than anyone had envisioned.

Battlefield casualties were minimal during U.S.-led military campaigns of the past two decades including conflicts in Afghanistan, Kosovo, the 1991 Persian Gulf War and campaigns in Panama and Grenada.

More than 57,000 troops died during the 12-year Vietnam War with about 200 Americans being killed each week at the height of that war. The United States lost 19,000 Americans during the four-week Battle of the Bulge during World War II. But U.S. military policy has made it a priority to keep U.S. and civilian casualties low at least since World War I.

Marwil, an Army veteran, teaches a popular course, “American Wars in the 20th Century.” He has expertise on Europe as well as the impact of war on U.S. culture. For more on Marwil, visit http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/Experts/marwil.html