Talk:Gulf War oil spill

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I think it would be better NPOV if the cause of the spill were attributed to the Iraqi regime. There is no reason to pretend uncertainty on this issue.NeonGeniuses 23:42, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes there is. The only reports on who was responsible come from the U.S. army during wartime. More notorious liars cannot be found. Also, they later admitted that a significant portion of the spilling was due to U.S. bombing. There are also credible reports that the oil fires were caused by American bombing, which the U.S. also blamed on the Iraqis. There are Iraqi denials available of the latter, anyway. These at least cast some clouds that I think, in these murky waters, deserve mention, barring a better investigation (which may never happen, unless some crackerjack reporter gets on this). Graft 01:22, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"More notorious liars cannot be found."

I concur the US State and military forces are, to say the least, less than honest. However, portraying them as the worse there is, that I cannot agree with. For a farcical example, consider Bagdad Bob, the Information Minister in the more recent war. For a more serious example, consider say State and armed forces of a wide range of countries, such as Saudia Arabia, Russia, China, etc. Toby Douglass (talk) 13:04, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

In fact, now I think more about this, dispuing the Iraq Army caused this seems to me to approach a conspiracy theory. The US Army had no motive to cause these oil spills; it did them no good. I could believe some spillage occurred as a byproduct of air raids, but I don't believe that many hundreds of millions of barrels of spillage occurred *or could have occurred* that way. Toby Douglass (talk) 14:59, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV of Enviornmental Claims

"The spill did little long-term damage. About half the oil evaporated, a million barrels were recovered and 2 million to 3 million barrels washed ashore, mainly in Saudi Arabia."

A cursory glance at actual research on this subject (I couldn't find the UNESCO report mentioned in the NYT article) suggests that this is a gloss at best. Perhaps we can add something more neutral here (like "Experts disagree about the lasting environmental impact of this oil spill.") and then direct people to some actual research on the subject in the footnotes. (e.g. http://www.uni-regensburg.de/Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_III/Geographie/phygeo/downloads/barthcoast.pdf or 161.252.8.203:8000/localfiles/kisr/isd/isdpub/013.pdf ) As it stands, "The spill did little long-term damage" is a ridiculous statement. However, even though I couldn't find any support for this claim, I wil settle for something neutral followed by links to legitimate research. And I would suggest that, in the future, a six sentence article from the NYT with no references is not sufficient backing for such a dramatic claim...

thanks -- BloodyBlackPudding —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.170.80.131 (talk) 22:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes - I too found this hard to believe. 450 million tons of oil and "little harm was done"? Toby Douglass (talk) 13:04, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] fsgsfgfse

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