The Consequences of the Gulf War on the Environment

The Second Gulf War is finished, but there will be its effects for many years … To realize what these effects are, we'll analayse the effects of the First Gulf War in 1991.

As the 1990 to 1991 Gulf War showed, such conflicts have devastating effects on the environment, biodiversity and the quality of life of local people long after the cessation of hostilities.

Analyses of the environment and wildlife in Iraq by BirdLife has shown that the country is home to one endemic species, the Basra reed warbler, as well as five other endemic or near-endemic marshland subspecies.

Mike Evans visited the Gulf for BirdLife in 1991, and told BBC that "Iraq is at the northern end of the Gulf, one of the top five sites in the world for wintering wader birds and a key refueling area for hundreds of thousands of migratory waterbirds during the spring and autumn."

Any military conflict could very realistically lead to the mass extinction of these species. Additionally, the eradication of these key areas could leave the animals without homes or grounds to stay on during their migratory movements.

BirdLife told BBC News that the 1991 war saw "by far the largest marine oil spills in history, with six to eight million barrels of crude oil spilled, severely polluting 560 kilometers (350 miles) of coast, and totally obliterating intertidal ecosystems."

BirdLife has also reported drastic reductions of the marshlands between 1991 and the present, from approximately 15,000 sq. km. to about 50 sq. km. The extinction of the bandicoot rat and a sub-species of otter have been identified as a direct result of this and other environmental catastrophes.

Some of the major risks to both wildlife and humans mentioned in the dossier which BirdLife prepared include toxic pollution from oil spills or oil well fires; radiological, chemical or toxic contamination from the use of weapons of mass destruction; and physical destruction of habitats caused by refugee movement through those areas.

Many other wells had been gushing oil. Figures estimated that between 4 and 8 million barrels of oil entered the sea. Between 35 and 150 million barrels were spread across about 60 percent of the surface of Kuwait, causing toxins to be evaporated into the air and groundwater to be heavily contaminated.

Bombing by the United States and its allies destroyed hundreds of square miles of unusual desert ecology; the use of landmines also contributed to this effect.

However, the effects of the war were not limited to Iraq and its surrounding areas, the Medact report shows, but were felt as far away as Hawaii and the Himalayas. Clean-up costs ranged anywhere between $150 and $200 billion.

As more than a decade has passed since the initial Gulf War, other dangers have arisen. Especially worrisome are the new threats of non-conventional weaponry. There has been a great deal of conjecture surrounding the question of whether or not Saddam Hussein posses biological and chemical weapon capability. In the case that he does, they may be used as a last ditch effort in order to prolong the war, and make it as cumbersome as possible for the invading countries.

Biological and chemical weapons are very different from conventional weapons in that their effects do not immediately disappear after an initial blast. The effects of these weapons can persist for a great deal of time after they are used, affecting people for long after they were used. Thus, the consequences of the use of weapons of these types cannot be enumerated with complete certainty.

An unconventional weapon used in this conflict was the Depleted uranium (DU) that has been used in medical and industrial applications for decades but its use in military conflicts in the Gulf War and the Balkans has led government and nonprofit officials to raise concerns about the health risks it may pose.

DU is used in munitions because its high density and melting point enable it to penetrate tank armor. It is also used to make tank armor.

People most likely to be exposed to depleted uranium are humanitarian workers and local populations living and working in areas contaminated by DU following conflict, according to the World Health Organization.

A fact sheet released by the World Health Organization in January 2001 asserts that health risks posed by DU are generally not great, but says "young children rather than adults could be more at risk of DU exposure when returning to normal activities within a war zone through contaminated food and water, since typical hand-to-mouth activity of inquisitive play could lead to high DU ingestion from contaminated soil."

DU has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, and at least 600,000 pounds of DU and uranium dust was left around Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia by U.S. and British forces during the Gulf War.

There is also a connection between depleted uranium and Gulf War Syndrome, the underestimated dangers from low-level radiation, the legal ramifications of DU production and use, and the growing movement against DU".

Because some of the chemicals used in war are highly volatile and thus have a time-limited impact, they can leave a smaller ecological footprint. The environmental consequences of using biological weapons poses a greater potential threat in some respects as it is harder to reverse the unleashing of a new organism into the environment.

The United States have kept nuclear weapons as an open option, if the right conditions were to occur during a war with Iraq. However, radiological contamination of the land, rivers and seas would remain long after the weapons were used, affecting both wildlife and the human populations.