Iraq northern oil pipeline hit by sabotage-sources

[cal04]

Iraq's northern oil pipeline to Turkey has been hit by yet another sabotage attack, delaying the restart of exports to world markets and undermining government efforts to rebuild the industry, sources said on Tuesday.

"It was bombed again yesterday," said a shipping agent.

A second source said the pipeline carrying crude from Iraq's northern oilfields to Turkey's Ceyhan port had been sabotaged, but details were sketchy. An Iraqi oil ministry official said only that more time was needed to complete maintenance work.

The pipeline was idled by sabotage on July 9, but officials were hoping for a swift restart.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAR138300.htm

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. They learned something important

Why bomb it twice a week? It's inefficient. Just bomb it two days before they're set to reopen it. That way, less risk and the fucking thing stays closed anyway. I read the article last week that said the pipeline was set to reopen next week. I just shook my head. That thing will be bombed within the next five days, I thought. As they used to say in Quang Tri province: There it is.

[Javaman]

3. Boom, there it is! boom there it is! nt

[Benhurst]

2. Oh god! Has anyone been sent to comfort Dick Cheney? NT

[Nickster]

4. Comfort him? He's probably the one that ordered that act. Less oil on the

market means only good things for the oil men.

[Benhurst]

5. But Uncle Dick also has to worry about the long term occupation

of Iraq. It we can't steal the oil, there is no reason to stay there.

[Nickster]

6. I honestly don't think they care about the oil other than to keep it in

the ground. So if Unka Dick foments a full blown civil war, that oil will stay in the ground for quite some time. If we aren't around to keep the chaos stoked up, the Saudis will be more than happy to destroy the pipelines for us, they don't want oil coming out of Iraq anymore than Unka Dick wants it. Less oil on the market=higher prices=One fat and happy Unka Dick. Of course we know the only thing that matters to Unka Dick is Unka Dick.

[Benhurst]

7. You may be right. But I don't see how they are going to justify

the permanent military bases and the billion Dollar embassy even to the faithful unless they can deliver the oil.

[Nickster]

8. Well, it's about projecting our influence into the Middle East and keeping

anyone else, China for instance, from coming into Iraq or Iran and making deals for all that wonderful oil. We stoke up the violence and make it way too difficult to exploit available oil reserves for anyone while Saudi Arabia keeps pumping out what it can and reaping the rewards of overly inflated oil profits, which they then use to buy up our massive debt habit.

They may throw out a bone here and there (Telling us oil output is increasing in Iraq, etc) to keep people from burning down palaces and such, but the truth is, they are running an Enron on us. They have supply, but they aren't going to share it, and they are going to either lie to us about supply issues, or create supply issues to drive up the prices.

Let's not even get into the unchecked hedge funds that are driving the speculation on oil prices. When you can drive billions and billions of dollars into oil on a whim, you can drive up the cost of that oil can't you?

Let's keep an eye on October-November. My prediction is that oil will "plunge" to the 60s and gas will be close to 2 dollars a gallon, at least for a month or two until after the elections have passed.

[Benhurst]

9. I'm expecting very reasonable gas prices before the elections, too.

And I fear Diebold et al will fix the results no matter what. These people are criminals who have siezed the government through a coup. Facing jail-time, there's no way they are going to give up control of Congress.

There have been three stolen federal elections; get ready for the fourth.

[gratuitous]

10. "Details were sketchy"

Yeah, including just how much oil Iraq is producing, who's paying for it (if anyone), who's shipping it, and who's paying for it off the tanker and with what currency. There are a LOT of sketchy details when you're talking about Iraq and its oil.