Iraq faces economic sabotage as blast hits oil export pipeline

[Nambe]

BAGHDAD, (Agencies)

Iraq's northern export pipeline via Turkey was damaged by a new sabotage blast over the weekend in another setback for Baghdad's battered oil sector, a senior Iraqi oil ministry official said on Tuesday. The official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters Iraq was also facing what he called widespread "economic sabotage" along a pipeline from Iraq's southern oilfields.

"The Iraq-Turkey pipeline was sabotaged 36 hours ago," he said. "It will take two weeks to repair if there are no new explosions and we still have several damaged areas on the pipeline that are still to be repaired from earlier explosions." The bombing of the line from the Kirkuk oilfields to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan delivers a further blow to Iraqi hopes of raising crude exports, crucial to funding rebuilding. ---

The attacks have suppressed oil supplies with the only exports so far from crude held in storage at export terminals since before the war began. In July Baghdad is planning to sell only eight million barrels, all from its southern fields, at a rate for the month of just 260,000 bpd. Before the war it was selling two million barrels daily.

The Iraqi official also said oil was being stolen and sold on the black market from a pipeline that carries crude from its southern fields to Baghdad. "We recently discovered serious economic sabotage in the south along the Strategic Pipeline that connects the south and the north," he said. "These criminals are piercing the pipeline, draining the crude, transporting it on road tankers through the Basra area. The crude is eventually taken to barges and is smuggled to Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates," he added. He said Iraqi oil officials had asked the US military to move quickly to stamp out the problem. ---

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[Old and In the Way]

1. But the war is over, right?

Did any of the PNAC wonders ever factor this into their dreams? Did they really think that Iraqi's would accept an American operation to liberate their oil without consequences?

Memo to the PNAC braintrust. Leave Iraq and watch the sabotauge stop. DO they understand that the military "war" was replaced by a war to thwart our stealing of their only marketable commodity?