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This paper seeks to review the reasons for which Saddam's regime intended to destroy and eliminate Kuwait's entire oil infrastructure before and after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The underestimation of oil wells that would be torched by Iraqi forces is also discussed in this paper.

To approach the scope of this paper, the intentions and the practical evidence of such sabotage are pointed out. Efforts to rescue Kuwait's oil wells in addition to planning for the expected catastrophe are highlighted. The plausible reasons that made such underestimation unclear are elaborated.

The instructions included in the Iraqi documents showed undoubtedly that the sabotage operation was not a random last‐minute attempt to destroy the oil wells, but it was a carefully supervised and well planned endeavor to completely destroy Kuwait's oil infrastructure. Owing to those efforts and planning, more than 100 oil wells were rescued throughout Kuwait. Due to such underestimation Kuwait suffered severe losses both to its oil industry and to its ecological system.

Since the reasons for the lower estimates of oil wells, torched by Iraqi troops, to a maximum of 100‐150 wells were unclear, this paper attributes Kuwait's economic losses and environmental degradation to such underestimation and suggests more investigations on this issue.

Kuwait's catastrophe brought the attention to environmental concerns that should receive immediate consideration, while the scorched‐earth tactic applied in Kuwait and the resulting environmental disaster led to a positive reaction by the international community and spawned a new environmental treaty at the regional level.

This is the first paper that addresses the underestimation of Kuwait's oil disaster. The conflagration in Kuwait demonstrated the danger in conducting large‐scale modern combat in an environmentally fragile area, and shows how exposed all oil‐producing nations are to this type of environmental and economic disaster in the future.

Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990 precipitated an ecological tragedy in the Arabian Gulf region. During the course of the invasion Kuwait suffered severe losses to both its oil industry and its ecological system. The scale of damage was enormous, ranging from destruction as a result of oil fires and spills to the economic deterioration of Kuwait's oil industry. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the lessons learned from Kuwait's oil well catastrophe in the hope of preventing or at least minimizing future such man‐made disasters.

The paper reviews and analyzes Kuwait's oil well tragedy in terms of its scope, logistical services provided to cope with the disaster, the techniques used in firefighting operations and related political issues. The paper also discusses the need to review existing environmental laws and the concept of environmental crime in light of this catastrophe.

There are many important lessons that can be drawn from Kuwait's catastrophic disaster, the most important of which is to ensure that dictators in the future never believe they can destroy the environment without severe repercussions from the international community.

The conflagrations in Kuwait demonstrate the dangerous consequences of large‐scale modern combat in an environmentally fragile area. Not just Kuwait but all oil‐producing nations, especially the Gulf countries, are vulnerable to this type of environmental and economic disaster.

Kuwait's tragedy highlights the need for immediate consideration of possible similar disasters in the future and how the global community will deal with them. The high cost of environmental degradation only gets more expensive when left unattended. The price is paid not only in hard currency for firefighting but in damage to the public's health and in other environmental problems. This paper shows that sustainable development is impossible in the presence of wars and terrorist activities.

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature about the environment as one of the victims of war throughout the history of mankind. Kuwait's environment, as a victim of the scorched‐earth tactic carried out by the retreating Iraqi forces in 1991, is also reviewed. The probable scenarios of an environmental threat in Iraq as a result of exploding the oil wells or discharging crude oil into the two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, are elaborated, taking into consideration the repetition of the current terrorist attacks on Iraq's oil installations.

The difficulties likely to face the firefighting efforts in such scenarios, compared with Kuwait's experience, are mentioned, with reference to the main differences between Kuwait's and Iraq's oil fields, topography, logistic services and security situation.

Owing to the large oil‐reserves in Iraq, the prospective environmental damages and economic losses are expected to be enormous. As the terrorist attacks on Iraq's oil installations may escalate, the potential scenarios of oil discharge into the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, or the use of scorched‐earth tactics in Iraq, might become the worst man‐made ecological disasters in history.

It is believed that such scenarios should be taken seriously by the concerned environmental planners and the need to secure Iraq's oil fields is paramount.

This paper highlights the problems associated with maintaining an adequate level of security and the potential repetition of terrorist attacks which will undoubtedly prevent or postpone any sustainable development in Iraq, especially in the oil industry and the two rivers‐based‐projects for at least the next decade. The effects of unsustainable development can become entangled with traditional forms of conflict in a way that can widen and deepen the latter in Iraq.

The purpose of this paper is to set guidelines for the development and review of environmental impact statements (EIS) for major development projects proposed in the third review of the Kuwait Master Plan (KMP3). Best practices for environmental quality management to alleviate the impact of these projects on the environment are discussed.

The paper selects six major projects proposed for the period (2005‐2030) in KMP3. These projects include construction of new towns, power plants, highways, hospitals, waterfront projects and sanitary engineering projects. The current environmental impact assessment (EIA) system in Kuwait is reviewed and a comprehensive proposal to develop or review EISs for each of the six projects is recommended.

The projects selected are known to have adverse environmental impacts. The proposed EIS system will help developers prepare and submit a comprehensive EIS to obtain an environmental permit from the Environment Public Authority in Kuwait.

The proposed guidelines could be modified and applied to EISs for similar projects in other Gulf countries and other regions in the world that have similar climate conditions and geographies.

It is hoped that the proposed EIS guidelines will qualify as best practices for environmental quality management of comparable projects. The guidelines should reduce the time involved for preparing EISs and promote greater content accuracy in addition to promoting a “cleaner production” approach for these projects.