JEDDAH, 4 May 2003 — “The environmental effects of the war in Iraq are significantly less dramatic than those of last war,” Dr. Osama Qurban, director of the General Administration for Monitoring, Response and Projections in the Ministry of Meteorology and Environment Protection, told Arab News.
Before the war, countries in the region and environmental organizations expected a similar disaster to the 1991 war, when huge amounts of oil leaked in to the sea. “The biggest damage that occurred this time was from the smoke from the burning of some oil wells and petroleum swamps, and the ministry has implemented a program to study the effects of that and make recommendations,” Dr. Qurban said.
He said there was no harm in the presence of war ships in the Gulf “unless there is waste discharge into the water or dumping of radioactive material and chemicals or any sort of explosion, but we haven’t received any reports of such things,” he added. “The area from Khafji to the island of Abu Ali was badly affected” in the 1991 war, Dr. Qurban said, “and there are still areas there after all these years where there is a layer of oil almost 80 cm in depth.”
The Kingdom made sure that the leaked oil did not reach the vital establishments such as the electricity and water plants and military bases which are all located to the south of Abu Ali. “Our goal was to contain all the floating oil and we were successful in most of the areas,” he said. “However, some areas were too difficult to reach.”
