Officials in the office of the Iraqi prime minister said Saudi Arabia had refused to supply Iraq with the information on which it based its claim that the drones which struck the oil facilities at Abqaiq had been launched from Iraq. Immediately after the Saudi statement accusing Iraqi military institutions of carrying out the operation and describing them as “militias”, the Iraqi prime minister ordered an immediate investigation. Saudi Arabia, however, failed to cooperate with the Iraqi inquiry and refused to hand over the information in its possession that would substantiate its allegations.
An Iraqi official said Iraq rejected these arbitrary and frivolous accusations against it, which had been shown to be baseless and unsupported by any technical or technological evidence such as satellite imagery, radar data or even intelligence reports. The official suggested that Saudi Arabia had become entangled at the moment the Abqaiq facility was destroyed amid rising columns of smoke and, unwilling to have the operation recorded as the work of an unknown party, had rushed to level the accusation at Iraq without waiting for the responsible side to claim responsibility.
The Yemeni armed forces had already announced responsibility for the operation, which took the Abqaiq facility out of service and completely disabled the Petroline pipeline.