The Purge of Battle

The conventional wisdom during and after the Gulf War was that it was among the worst environmental disasters in history. After all, hundreds of millions of barrels of crude oil leaked into the sands of Kuwait and the waters of the Persian Gulf or burned off into acrid clouds of choking pollution. But a newly published study has reached a surprising conclusion: while some stretches of the Saudi coastline were indeed fouled with oil, the hydrocarbons had largely degraded just four months after the war was over. Even more startling: parts of the gulf were actually cleaner after the war than before. Oysters caught off the coast of Bahrain, about halfway down the gulf, had lower levels of petroleum contamination than in the mid-1980s. Offshore sediments showed the same pattern. The probable explanation: sharply reduced tanker traffic more than made up for the effects of the war-related spills.

For humans, though, war-related pollution may have been less benign. In response to complaints by gulf vets of mysterious ailments following their tours, the Department of Veterans Affairs will open environmental medicine referral centers in Los Angeles, Houston and Washington. There is a chance these illnesses are pollution related -- at least one vet had elevated levels of hydrocarbons in his blood -- and in the aftermath of the VA's bitter fight with Vietnam veterans over the health effects of Agent Orange, the agency wants to monitor the situation closely.