Gulf War essays

Gulf War essays On the 2nd of August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Millions of trees, wildlife, marine life, humans and the environment in general, were destroyed. This invasion, was called the GULF WAR. The social, environmental and economic impacts will be felt for years. The Gulf War was a major environmental disaster. Wildlife and their habitat was destroyed both in Iraq and Kuwait. Grass, soil and trees were destroyed by bombing, oily particles (which was from the numerous fires, resulting in acres and acres of land being destroyed), acid rain, and the most major problem, which affected the environment enormously, was the oil slick in the Persian Gulf. The oil slick was totally disastrous. Both America and Iraq were to blame. The US led forces, bombed 2 oil tankers in Kuwait harbour, releasing large quantities of oil. Then several days later it was announced that Iraqi forces had opened the valves on several pipelines, allowing oil to spill directly into the Gulf. This 6 million barrel slick killed approximately 15,000 to 30,000 birds alone. Comorants, grebes and herons were hit very hard. Comorants would dive for fish and then get totally coated in oil and then they die very slowly and painfully as they ingest the oil while desperately trying to preen itself. The slick effected the whole food chain from the microscopic organisms to the turtles and dugongs. As oil is extremely hard to remove and is very expensive, and also because the Persian Gulf has a small inlet in which water flows in and out, the matter became worse, causing the oil to do an enormous amount of damage. The food chain will never ever be the same becau se of some humans silly and thoughtless actions. The impacts on the Iraqi and Kuwaiti population was devastating. The destruction of Iraqs electricity, health care, water and food supply systems has caused unemployment, hunger, disease and suffering for millions of ordinary people in Iraq ...