Corporate America should be able to ride out the first shock-waves from war in Iraq, according to early indications from US companies.

But although markets are upbeat about an early end to the campaign, executives are beginning to worry about the aftermath.

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Many US companies will get the chance to detail the early impact of the war on their operations when they announce first-quarter results over the coming days.

War could provide a convenient short-term excuse for missing targets. Only later will it become clear whether "geopolitical uncertainty" was camouflaging deeper economic or operational problems.

General Electric, a bellwether for many US industrial companies, said last week that higher raw material prices were holding back its plastics division, and the early coverage of the campaign had cost NBC, its television network, $50m (£32m). GE, which will report first-quarter results on Friday, has not altered its earnings forecasts.

But Siebel Systems and PeopleSoft, two software makers, both warned last week that that geopolitical uncertainty had delayed corporate purchasing at the end of the first quarter - traditionally a busy time for information technology companies.

Retailers such as Circuit City, the consumer electronics group, and Borders, the bookseller, have also alerted investors that the war kept consumers away from their stores last month. And yesterday Wendy's, the fast-food restaurant chain, and Belo, a media group, both raised concerns about the impact of war on their business.

The official line from corporate America is still that medium and long-term plans have not been affected.

Brenda Reichelderfer, a senior executive at ITT Industries, says the industrial group is moving ahead with acquisitions in its core areas - it announced the purchase of a small Italian pump manufacturer last week.

However, there is a growing realisation that if the campaign does not end soon, or if a messy victory fails to resolve geopolitical uncertainty, then US companies may have to revise their earlier optimism about a recovery in the second half of 2003 and pull in their horns even further.

Gail Fosler, chief economist at the Conference Board, the New York-based business research organisation, says: "There are companies that are making acquisitions and expanding because they are preparing for the next upturn but as a general proposition it is unfashionable to step out ahead of the pack."

Some media, hotel and airline companies have already begun to add warnings about the potential repercussions of war in Iraq to the risk statements they have to include in press releases and regulatory filings.

On the eve of war USA Interactive, the e-commerce group, announced it would acquire outright control of Expedia, the online travel company, but noted that its projections were "based on a short conflict in Iraq without any other significant geopolitical disruptions during the year".

USA did not define what it meant by "short". But Michael Useem of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school, a consultant to several companies, believes US companies were expecting a three or four-week campaign. "I heard weeks, not months," he says.

ITT, which, among other activities, supplies parts to the automotive industry, is one of the companies that has been asked by Japanese carmakers to maintain 10 additional days of inventory in case of disruption to supply chains.

Prolonged geopolitical worries would also weigh on ITT's aerospace businesses. That would not push the company off course, says Ms Reichelderfer, but she adds: "The issue is causing us to be less optimistic about the economy in the second half of this year, so we are choosing to cut back on more discretionary items than we would have."

Those concerns could be alleviated if the campaign ends soon. But economists do not expect consumer confidence to bounce back immediately, making it difficult for companies to anticipate demand for their products.

Based on surveys taken before the war began, the Conference Board's consumer confidence index fell to a preliminary 62.5 in March - the lowest reading since October 1993 - and down from 110.7 a year earlier.

The campaign has created "an odd type of uncertainty", says Campbell Harvey, a global risk management expert at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. "We don't know what the probabilities are - nobody knows what the probability is of a short war. The result is businesses are hesitant to make major capital commitments."

Executives remain worried that victory in Iraq, however it is defined, will provide only temporary relief. Asked last week to distinguish between the war's impact on spending and the impact of other economic conditions, Tom Siebel, the software group's chief executive, said it was not possible to tell the difference.

"It's entirely possible that this is something other than war jitters," he told analysts. "The fact of the matter is: the economic climate is very subdued, globally."