Orange flames seen in direction of Iraqi oil center

Associated Press

NEAR THE KUWAIT-IRAQ BORDER — Orange flames could be seen Thursday on the horizon in the direction of the southern Iraqi oil center Basra, and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said three or four oil wells may have been set afire.

Witnesses in Kuwait about eight miles south of the border said the flickering flames were spotted after a series of explosions that shook buildings in the area.

It was not known if the flames resulted from the explosions.

The Arab satellite television channel Al-Arabiya reported that fires had erupted in Iraq’s al-Rumeila field west of Basra and just north of the Kuwaiti border.

Associated Press reporter Ross Simpson, embedded with a Marine unit in northern Kuwait, says he was told by a battalion commander that “three oil wells have been torched” in Iraq. He said he had no first-hand confirmation of the report.

Rumsfeld said the Pentagon was trying to get additional information.

Even before the war began, the Pentagon expressed fears that Saddam Hussein had planned to sabotage Iraq’s oil fields. A loss of oil from Iraq — home to the world’s second-largest reserves — could crimp supplies for importing countries, and deny U.S. and British governments an asset they hope will help pay for postwar efforts.

In 1991, Iraqi troops destroyed more than 700 well heads in Kuwait, turning its oil fields into a desert inferno that took seven months to extinguish.

“Needless to say, it is a crime for that regime to be destroying the riches of the Iraqi people,” Rumsfeld said in Washington.