  We investigate inertial mode oscillations of slowly and uniformly rotating,
isentropic, Newtonian stars. Inertial mode oscillations are induced by the
Coriolis force due to the star's rotation, and their characteristic frequencies
are comparable with the rotation frequency $\Omega$ of the star. So called
r-mode oscillations form a sub-class of the inertial modes. In this paper, we
use the term ``r-modes'' to denote the inertial modes for which the toroidal
motion dominates the spheroidal motion, and the term ``inertial modes'' to
denote the inertial modes for which the toroidal and spheroidal motions have
comparable amplitude to each other. Using the slow rotation approximation
consistent up to the order of $\Omega^3$, we study the properties of the
inertial modes and r-modes, by taking account of the effect of the rotational
deformation of the equilibrium on the eigenfrequencies and eigenfunctions. The
eigenfrequencies of the r-modes and inertial modes calculated in this paper are
in excellent agreement with those obtained by Lindblom et al (1999) and
Lockitch & Friedman (1998). We also estimate the dissipation timescales due to
the gravitational radiation and several viscous processes for polytropic
neutron star models. We find that for the inertial modes, the mass multipole
gravitational radiation dominates the current multipole radiation, which is
dominating in the case of the r-modes. It is also found that the inertial mode
instability is more unstable than previously reported by Lockitch & Friedman
(1998), and survives the viscous damping processes relevant in neutron stars.
