Consequences of Wars and Military

¶ … consequences of wars and military conflicts are generally viewed in terms of human devastation, the local environments, which support human life, are equally devastated. In Iraq, for example, decades of conflict have resulted in the deterioration of land and the collapse of the marshlands which are vital to the region.

Environmental Impact of the War in Iraq

In order for Iraq to secure a stable and sustainable future, there are many environmental challenges the country faces and must be addressed (Post pp).

Iraq has endured decades of recent conflicts, beginning with the 1980's Iran-Iraq war to the military actions of 1991 and 2003 (Post pp). These military conflicts, "compounded by a lack of focus on issues and insufficient resources allocated to the environment have contributed to the present environmental problems" (Post pp).

Since the early part of 2003, the United Nations Environment Programme has been studying the environmental issues in Iraq when the Government of Switzerland funded a six-week desk study on the environment in Iraq (Post pp).

Conducted during the conflict itself, all available information concerning Iraq's environmental situation was compiled and analyzed, resulting in the April 2003 "UNEP Desk Study on the Environment in Iraq" Post pp). The study outlined immediate environmental concerns that "pose a direct threat to the health and livelihoods of the Iraqi people. In particular, threats to water, waste management, degradation of the Marshlands and pollution from weapons and war damaged sites were highlighted" (Post pp).

In mid-2003, two field missions were conducted in Iraq with the purpose of studying the environmental situation and priorities (Post pp). These missions resulted in extensive input to the United Nations Development Group Needs

Assessment, as well as a published report of the findings entitled "Environment in Iraq: UNEP Progress Report" (Post pp). Since the establishment of the Iraq Ministry of Environment in August 2003, UNEP has focused on helping to identify the needs as well as working on strengthening the Ministry's capacity for environmental management (Post pp).

Although the loss of human life is certainly the most serious consequence of war, the environment also become a casualty long after the end of armed conflict, resulting in ecological damage and contamination (Skirble pp). The Gulf War of 1991 resulted in an "environmental nightmare of burning oil wells, oil slicks and polluted croplands," however, the present Iraqi conflict may prove to be even more devastating (Skirble pp).

During the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi soldiers set fire to some six hundred oil wells as they retreated from Kuwait, leaving towering pillars of fire and columns of smoke venting from the wells for over eight months, "spreading toxic fumes in all directions (Skirble pp). Iraq's military also "unleashed the largest oil slick ever over lowlands and farms" resulting in the death of some twenty-five thousand birds, the degradation of fisheries and poisoned trees from acid rain (Skirble pp).

However, despite the widespread destruction, the region rebounded faster than experts predicted (Skirble pp). According to Jonathan Lash, President of the World Resources Institute, many were concerned that the damage would be permanent and although there is still some evidence of contamination and it is uncertain how long the toxins in the water column will remain, the water is relatively warm and therefore the natural process of cleanup went remarkably fast (Skirble pp). However, Kuwaiti lands, especially agricultural lands, were not so fortunate (Skirble pp). Today there are still "vast areas that are caked with hardened residue of oil vapor and carbon that has made agriculture difficult" and Kuwaitis claim it killed approximately eighty percent of their livestock (Skirble pp).

In February 2004, Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering House International Relations Committee Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, spoke before Congress concerning the environmentalism in Iraq (Environmentalism pp). The Mesopotamian Marshlands (Ahwar in Arabic), associated with the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, once inundated 20,000 square kilometers in southern Iraq and Iran (Environmentalism pp). These complex ecosystems consisted of marshes and lakes that provided habitat for diverse populations of fish and wild fowl, and considered by many as the site of the biblical "Eden" (Environmentalism pp). During the Baathist regime, water management was based on diversion actions directed towards punishing the resistance movement that sought refuge in the region during the early 1990's (Environmentalism pp). As a result, the marshes have dried up to less than five percent of their former extent, "causing extensive salination of soils and an extensive unsaturated zone in this arid climate...and endangered species of birds are threatened by the marshland loss along major flyways" (Environmentalism pp). Moreover, salt water has also seeped into waterways, adversely affecting local freshwater commercial fisheries, and the Ma'dan culture has essentially been destroyed (Environmentalism pp).

According to Miralles-Wilhelm, "ecological and water resources management changes in the Tigris- Euphrates watershed have had, and will continue to have, profound political, economic, environmental and cultural-ethnical consequences" (Environmentalism pp).

The Euphrates originates in Turkey, passes through Syria and ends in Iraq, and has been a matter of contention for all three nations. Increasing pressures for water supply and the rise of the petroleum industry have added to the agricultural demand, resulting in a situation where the demand for water exceeds the hydrologic capacity of the watershed. This pressure has resulted in a rapid degradation of the Tigris-Euphrates watershed ecosystem (Environmentalism pp).

The main cause of this enormous loss of wetland habitat is the alteration of natural processes essential to sustaining them by "anthropogenic activities, such as the construction of levees, the pollution of tributary streams, and construction of drainage canals for oil and gas exploration and production" (Environmentalism pp).

With the continued loss of these marshes, there is a threat of collapse of the entire Ahwar ecosystem and retardation of its numerous functions, which includes the "provision of habitat to support commercial fishing and the protection of a large urban population and critical infrastructure (e.g., energy, transportation, industrial) from damaging floods and storm surges" (Environmentalism pp). Moreover, the marshlands serve as "wintering grounds for migratory birds along the West Siberian-Caspian-Nile flyway... also nursery grounds for shrimp migrating up from the Arabian Gulf," a commercial importance to Gulf states (Environmentalism pp).

Aside from the deterioration of the marshlands themselves, is the collapse of the Marsh Arab society, "a distinct indigenous people who have inhabited the marshlands for millennia' (Demise pp). Of the estimated half-million Marsh Arabs, approximately 40,000 are living in refugee camps in Iran, "while the rest are internally displaced within Iraq" (Demise pp). Heir to the ancient Sumerians and Babylonians, this 5,000-year-old culture is in serious jeopardy of extinction (Demise pp).

Timothy Foresman, director of the United Nations Environment Programme's Division of Early Warning and Assessment, has said, "The tragic loss of the Mesopotamian marshlands stands out as one of the world's greatest environmental disasters" (Owen pp). Many claim that the consequences of war on Iraq's bird life extends far beyond the country's borders, and UNEP has warned, "The effects of marshland dessication is being felt across thousands of miles from the Arctic to southern Africa" (Owen pp).