Only seven oil wells in southern Iraq have been set on fire by Iraqi forces, and not around 30 as previously announced, the chief of British armed forces Admiral Sir Michael Boyce said Friday.
"I'm pleased to be able to tell you that the latest information I have is that only seven well heads have been fired, as opposed to the some 30 or so that we suspected might have been on fire today," Boyce told a press briefing at the Ministry of Defence in London.
"Of course that's only seven of the many hundreds that make up the oil fields," he said, blaming the confusion in part on Iraqi forces lighting trenches full of oil to create smokescreens.
Boyce said "specialist civilian contractors" would be in the area "in a day or two" to snuff out the fires.
AFP