main source of oil to be the Sea Island Oil Terminal in Kuwait, which spilled approximately 70,000 to 80,000 tons of oil each day for a week. On January 26, three US F-117 fighter-bombers destroyed pipelines to prevent further spillage into the Persian Gulf. Several other sources of oil were found to be active: tankers and a damaged Kuwaiti oil refinery near Mina Al Ahmadi, tankers near Bubiyan Island, and Iraq's Mina Al Bakr terminal. Early estimates from the Pentagon on the volume spilled hovered around . These numbers were significantly adjusted downward by later, more-detailed studies; government researchers placed the volume of oil spilled between and , while private researchers placed it between and . The slick reached a maximum size of by and was 5 inches (13 cm) thick in some areas. Despite the uncertainty surrounding the size of the spill, figures place it several times the size (by volume) of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, making it one of the—if not the—largest oil spills in history. Clean-up After the spill’s occurrence, most clean-up efforts went into recovering the oil by skimming it from the water’s surface. By April 1991, it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil had already been recovered. However, the clean-up process was impeded by a lack of funding and equipment as well as by the ongoing Gulf War. With these obstructions and most clean-up efforts being focused on oil recovery, very little clean-up was done on Saudi Arabia’s beaches. In a Wall Street Journal article written 14 months after the spill, Ken Wells reported that an estimated 375 miles (604 km) of shoreline remained covered in oil. The lack of attention given to Saudi Arabia’s beaches and other sensitive environments, such as mangrove forests and marshes, brought the Saudi government under attack by environmentalist groups concerned about the lasting effects of the oil. Environmental impact From the first reports of the spill in January 1991, the possible environmental damage it could cause was at the forefront of many minds. Lippman and Booth, reporting for The Washington Post on January 26, 1991, cited multiple experts who had high concerns about the spill and its impacts on the environment, calling it an “ecological disaster.” Despite the industry that skirts the Persian Gulf, the area still supports a diverse ecosystem, including endangered and endemic species. Following the spill, researchers and environmentalists had serious