The 'spoils' of war: damaged economies ... devastated ecologies.

• Position: Aftermath of the Persian Gulf War

The oil well fires, ranging since late February, may create a kind of global "nuclear winter", it has been stated. Others have said that "smart weapons" and "surgical strikes" would inflict relatively low-level ecological and economic pain on the region and, ultimately, the world at large.

The environmental front

In March, 4 million to 6 million barrels of oil were reported burning off each day at some 500 Kuwaiti oil wells. The United States said that coalition forces had "physical evidence that these fires were deliberately set by Iraqi forces". Iraq denied the charge.

On 28 February, Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar called the oil slick in the Persian Gulf "an ecological catastrophe of major proportions".

Saudi Arabia charged Iraq with spilling more than 10 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf waters. Coral reefs, seaweed, tortoise and sea turtles, sea and shore birds, fish and non-vertebrates, sandy beaches and lagoons were threathened, Saudi Arabia said. Iraq put the blame on United States aircraft which, it claimed, had bombed two Iraqi tankers.

The oil slick was estimated at 1 million barrels by a scientific team sent to Saudi Arabia in February by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The team confirmed that "extensive damage" had been inflicted to some sensitive coastal eco-systems, including mangroves, fishery breeding grounds and habitats of endangered species. It also noted that environmental information related to the Gulf hostilities was "controversial and often contradictory".

In March, UNEP set up a task force to carry out a 90-day in-depth survey and assessment of environmental damage in the region. The study will be carried out by experts from UNEP, the World Health Organization and the World Meteorological Organization, in association with the Regional Organisation for the Protection of the Marine Environment and Governments of the region.

Data will be collected on the nature and content of emissions from the blazing Kuwaiti oil wells. Oil pollution affecting human populations, ecosystems, living marine resources and coastal infrastructure will be monitored. A third focus of concern will be "terrestrial destruction", that is, damage to food, soil and agriculture.

William A. O'Neil, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization on 5 March called for the establishment of an international fund to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf.

Economic shock waves

By the end of March 1991, the economic shock...