A look at three wars in the first month

WASHINGTON -- A month into the Afghanistan campaign, Americans are fighting their way into winter. A month into the Kosovo campaign, they were fighting into spring.

In the Persian Gulf War, it was just plain hot.

The United States attacked Afghanistan in response to terrorists who killed Americans at home. It went to war against Iraq to free Kuwait and protect the region and its supply of oil.

Kosovo was about ethnic killing and regional instability.

These major military campaigns over a decade that also took Americans into harm's way in places such as Bosnia and Somalia, are different in their motivations, goals, size, terrain and much more.

But there are some similarities, too -- the stateside goodbyes to sailors and soldiers, the knowledge each day's choreography of military machinery will bring danger, the certainty that innocents abroad will die.

Also common at least to the Afghanistan and Kosovo conflicts is that, about a month into each one, nagging questions arose about whether all that bombing was doing much good.

NATO planes bombed through several weeks of lousy weather before they could target Serbian troops and their artillery. Even during the air war that proceeded swiftly against Iraq after months of buildup, fears existed that allies would die in great numbers in the coming ground war.

A look at elements of three wars, in their first month, by the numbers:

Bombing and casualties

The Bombing: The number of combat and bombing flights over Afghanistan, increasing lately, has averaged just over 60 a day. Allies flew 500 missions a day over Yugoslavia and 1,500 a day during the Gulf War.

The Other Side: U.S. forces are up against 45,000 to 50,000 Taliban fighters. The United States and its allies faced about 40,000 armed Serbs in Kosovo and roughly 500,000 Iraqi soldiers.

U.S. Casualties: About a month into the Gulf War, U.S. officials said 16 Americans had been killed in combat and 33 in noncombat operations. Thirty were missing in action and eight were prisoners of war. No Americans died in that period over Kosovo; three were taken prisoner. No U.S. soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan but two Army Rangers supporting a commando raid died in a helicopter crash in Pakistan and a third soldier was killed in a forklift accident in the Persian Gulf.

Civilian casualties: Reliable numbers are impossible in the midst of fighting. More than 400 civilian deaths from NATO air strikes were confirmed independently a month into the Kosovo campaign, which was fought to stop the killing and dislocation of civilians by Serb forces. Iraq claimed 1,600 civilians dead at this point of the Gulf War. The United States, which lost more than 4,600 people in the terrorist attacks, has admitted mistaken bombings of some civilian areas while disputing Taliban claims of 1,500 civilian dead.

U.S. Losses: 17 aircraft about a month into the Gulf War. In the Yugoslavia campaign, Americans lost one stealth bomber, one Apache helicopter and one unmanned reconnaissance plane in that time. In the Afghan war, America lost a helicopter and an unmanned Predator spy plane Friday -- bad weather was blamed -- as well as the helicopter that crashed in Pakistan, and an additional unmanned aircraft that went down before airstrikes started.

Opposing Losses: A month into the Gulf War, allies had destroyed 72 Iraqi planes and damaged or sunk as many ships, taken more than 1,200 prisoners and prompted 142 Iraqi planes to flee to Iran. Serbian officials said they had lost 2,000 troops, and sustained damage to their military equipment and petroleum supplies. In this conflict, the Pentagon claimed control of the Afghan sky within days but has refused to estimate Taliban troops killed or the range of targets damaged or destroyed.

Troops and refugees

U.S. Troops: None in Kosovo; 3,000 support troops were in the region, among 20,000 committed by NATO. Early in the second month, President Clinton called up 33,000 reservists. The United States had a force of 425,000 in the Gulf region at the start of the air war. Pentagon officials said at the start of the Afghan bombing that about 30,000 troops were in the region; some commandos have since entered Afghanistan.

The Refugees: In the first month, 600,000 refugees were fleeing from Kosovo and 15,000 from Iraq. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees believes more than 100,000 Afghans have fled to Pakistan.

The Territory: Afghanistan, with mostly rugged mountains with plains in the north and southwest, is larger than Iraq, Kuwait and all of Yugoslavia put together.

Congress and allies

View from the Home Front: Polls continue to suggest more than 80 percent of Americans support the war, although people are becoming nervous about how long the alliance will hold and whether Osama bin Laden will be found. A month into the Gulf War, a poll found 75 percent of Americans supportive of the campaign. Concern about civilian casualties was high during the Kosovo effort, with support for the bombing dropping to about half of poll respondents after the mistaken attack on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

Congress: In the days after the terrorist attacks, the Senate voted 98-0 and the House voted 420-1 to authorize the use of force to respond. The primary resolutions for the other wars: The Senate voted 58-41 to support NATO strikes against Yugoslavia and 52-47 to authorize force to free Kuwait.

The Allies: The Gulf War was fought by a coalition of 28 countries including Arab states, with the United States making the largest commitment. Kosovo was a NATO-coordinated campaign led by U.S. forces with 18 other countries pitching in. This war is being fought overwhelmingly by the United States, with Britain as an active military ally and a half-dozen states pledging some military support. Turkey, the only Muslim NATO member, is offering a special forces unit. Within Afghanistan, the anti-Taliban northern alliance says it will mount an offensive when the time is right.

The End: The Gulf War -- a massive air assault followed by a lightning ground campaign -- started Jan. 16, 1991, and was won that Feb. 27, with Kuwait freed but Saddam Hussein left in power.

The bombing of Yugoslavia started March 24, 1999, and was suspended that June 9 with a pact to remove Serbian forces from Kosovo. The Serbian province remains under U.N. and NATO control and Yugoslavia now has new leaders, with ex-President Slobodan Milosevic under arrest for alleged war crimes.

The bombing of Afghanistan started Sunday, Oct. 7, evening in Kabul, the capital.