Like most folks around the UN, Under Secretary General Mervat Tallawy views with trepidation the mounting evidence of the Bush administration's determination to take out Saddam Hussein. An Egyptian who was her country's first woman ambassador, her concern is not motivated by any feelings of respect or admiration for the brutal Iraqi dictator but rather because of the unforeseeable but not less alarming consequences that may be set in train by the conflict.

No surprise here, but the members of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, of which Tallawy is the executive secretary, agree with her and oppose the seeming headlong rush toward war.

One in 5 Arabs lives on less than $2 a day, unemployment in the ESCWA region is the developing world's worst and, oil riches notwithstanding, the GDP for the entire membership comes in under that for Spain, which is used as a contrasting point in its statistics.

Despite all that oil, 43 percent of the population live without electricity, and polls show that 51 percent of adolescents in the region, a large percentage of whose population is aged under 24, would love to be someplace else through emigration.

Western Asia is, of course, known to Eurocentrics as the Middle East. The Palestinian Authority, like Iraq, is a member of ESCWA. Israel is not. That's because there was a war going on between Israel and the Arabs in 1973 when the commission was created, Tallawy explained. The rules excluded Israel's admission. In theory, and occasionally in practice, war is still going on. Only Egypt and Jordan have made peace pacts with the Israelis.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is having a "tremendous" negative effect on ESCWA, whose members are being "held hostage" to it, Tallawy says. "So many of the resources of this region are diverted to the conflict instead of to development." Regional instability and consequent worries about capital preservation account for an outflow of largely private funds estimated at $900 billion.

War between the US (or the UN) and Iraq would also impact the entire region, Tallawy fears. She recalls that thousands of Iraqis fled into Jordan during the 1991 Desert Storm imposing an immense burden on their host nation. The consequences for Lebanon in a new attack are another deep concern.

Regional media, understandably, dwell anxiously on the likely results of an American attack on Iraq and are far less sanguine about it than are some of the more hawkish voices in Washington. It's clear that this UN personage shares the analysts' concerns.

The last time round, Israel was persuaded not to respond to Scud missile attacks from Iraq, for fear of upsetting a coalition that included some Arab states. Israel is unlikely to be so accommodating the next time, many say.

"Once there is war, there's speculation by the media in the region that there might be rockets against Israel and that Israel will respond," Tallawy reports. "We don't know whether with normal rockets or with nuclear warheads. Who will control the action?"

ESCWA holds regular metings on regional security and everybody there wants peace, she adds.

Back to the water issue in one of the world's most parched areas. Tallawy says there's already a dispute about access to water and Lebanon worries that Israel could use the issue to launch an attack on that nation, timing it coincide with an outbreak of war with Iraq and heedless of a 1956 accord involving Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Israel that entitles Lebanon to one-third of the water in question. In fact, says Tallawy, the Lebanese have been using far less water than the agreement permits.