Just read on Haberturk, a Turkish News Site, that oil wells in Iraq are on fire. The news piece said, "details will follow soon". In the mean time here is an article from Houston Cronicle.
Sabri +++++++++ March 19, 2003, 10:59AM Saddam opens spigots on oil wells, reports say By DAVID IVANOVICH Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- With a U.S.-led assault perhaps just hours away, Saddam Hussein has opened the spigots on some of his country's oil wells, creating pools of crude that could be set ablaze, Pentagon and oil industry sources said today. Saddam's operatives also are believed to have tied plastic explosives packed against the wells to a small number of switches, those sources said. This would allow Saddam to detonate many wells simultaneously, and it could also help ensure that any order to blow up the wells is carried out. Some observers have questioned whether Iraqis would follow orders to torch the fields in their own country, as they did to the oil fields in Kuwait. A Pentagon source said the activity had been observed in at least the northern part of the country, where Iraq's huge Kirkuk oil-field is located. The Pentagon fears Saddam intends to destroy as many of the country's 1,500 oil wells as possible if the United States and Britain launch an invasion. U.S. and British military officials have been accusing Saddam's forces of planting explosives in Kirkuk, as well as in southern fields near Basra. Oil industry officials also have been hearing reports that Saddam has been replacing key oil field workers with supporters deemed more loyal to the Iraqi leader. The U.S. military is hoping to avoid any destruction to the oil fields, knowing the country's oil wealth will be critical to Iraq's future. To prepare for a possible conflagration, the Pentagon hired Houston-based Kellogg Brown & Root, owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer, Halliburton Co., to draw up a plan to deal with any well fires on short notice. Last week, the Pentagon asked companies interested in providing firefighting services in Iraq to call a toll-free number. During the first Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi army blew up more than 730 oil wells in Kuwait before retreating in advance of a U.S.-led attack. Oil well firefighting crews spent nearly eight months dousing those fires. And the Pentagon says the cost to repair the destruction approached $20 billion.
