Oil Slick Defeated After Five Months, Elated Saudis Say

Saudi Arabia declared victory Wednesday over the black sludge that has dotted its coast the past five months, saying the oil that Iraq let loose in the final days of the Gulf War has all but disappeared.

Still, Saudi Arabia and neighboring Bahrain will keep some fiberglass booms afloat around crucial desalination plants and waterside industries as a precautionary measure.

No one knows for sure how much oil spilled into the Persian Gulf when Iraqi troops opened the valves of Kuwait’s Sea Island Terminal during the war.

“It’s a victory,” said Abdul-Wahab Dakak of the kingdom’s Meteorology and Environmental Protection Administration. “We most certainly have vanquished the slick.”

At the height of the war, experts estimated that 11 million barrels of oil gushed into the Gulf. But later air and sea investigations scaled the figure back to a still-devastating 3.5 million barrels.

The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill--America’s worst--involved about 300,000 barrels.

Much cleanup work remains to be done, however. Many beaches and islands remain fouled with oil, and scientists are still trying to assess longterm damage.