It is being reported that there was an attack on the lines near the

[Joe for Clark]

refinery in north Iraq, Baiji. Dow Jones newswire picked it up. I knew it and I called it weeks ago. The army should have known that was coming - honest to god.

The attack took place in the section of the pipeline connecting the oil-rich city of Kirkuk to the Baiji, home to Iraq's largest oil refinery. Iraq usually pumps Kirkuk crude oil to the refinery, 250 kilometers north of Baghdad, which takes what it needs before it pumps the rest to Ceyhan.

Also - Turkey started shelling again into Kurdistan - I think it lasted til this morning.

Joe

[EFerrari]

1. Our criminal government has no interest in making things go right.

We're on our own, as far as I can tell. Hang in, Joe.

[Joe for Clark]

15. I meant to say hi to you - sometimes I get lost in my own

BS - I am sorry.

HI.

Joe

[Roland99]

2. Didn't that happen yesterday? Or is this *another* attack?

[Lone_Star_Dem]

3. This is the one that took place on Tuesday

They're updating the information in the blast.

Here's the revised story:

AMMAN -(Dow Jones)- Unknown attackers have blown up part of an Iraqi pipeline that pumps crude oil from Kirkuk oil fields to the Turkish export terminal, Ceyhan, a senior Iraqi oil official and a shipping agent said Wednesday.

"The pipeline was attacked and damaged Tuesday," the official told Dow Jones Newswires by telephone from Baghdad.

The attack took place in the section of the pipeline connecting the oil-rich city of Kirkuk to the Baiji, home to Iraq's largest oil refinery. Iraq usually pumps Kirkuk crude oil to the refinery, 250 kilometers north of Baghdad, which takes what it needs before it pumps the rest to Ceyhan.

The official said the pipeline blast was "catastrophic" as it caused huge quantities of crude oil to spill into the Tigris River.

It isn't known yet how long it will take the Iraqi authorities to repair the damaged pipeline.

A Middle East shipping agent based in Ceyhan, through which Iraq exports its Kirkuk crude to Europe, confirmed the flow of oil via the export pipeline was on hold Wednesday.

More at link: http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200709190648DOWJONESDJONLINE000415_FORTUNE5.htm

[Joe for Clark]

5. Thanks for linking this - I am not good at it.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

8. No problem

I'd just finished reading the article moments before I saw your post so it was easy to find.

Glad to be of help.

[DS1]

4. Attacks on pipelines have been going on for years

just because you called one of them in one of the four main quadrants doesn't mean damn much of anything

[Joe for Clark]

6. Well not the lines in and out of that refinery it hasn't.

I think many thought it was fairly safe because of its geography.

You know they just barely got ability to even ship to the north. When did that reopen - last month??

There are really only two ways oil leaves that country. Maybe 20% thru Turkey - and that is recent and the vast majority goes out of the southern port - you know, the place where the british split?

If I was a betting man - I'd bet there is a full court press coming to screw up the southern port or the loading facilities off shore. And the army better get this one right or this is going to escalte big time.

Joe

[Jacobin]

7. This site tracks attacks on iraqi pipelines. They're up to 461

through July 23.


http://www.iags.org/iraqpipelinewatch.htm

Here's July, just fyi


451. July 1 - in Kirkuk, an Iraqi soldier assigned to bolster local Oil Protection Force (OPF) personnel was fatally shot by insurgents.
452. July 1 - Coalition forces neutralised an IED that had been intended to sabotage an oil pipeline southwest of Kirkuk.
453. July 3 - Insurgents hijacked four oil tanker trucks that were carrying gasoline to Baghdad on the highway north of Hilla.
454. July 6 - Insurgents detonated a roadside IED near an Iraqi Oil Protection Force (OPF) patrol vehicle near Kirkuk, killing one soldier and injuring another three, including an officer.
455. July 11 - Oil Protection Force (OPF) guards clashed with smugglers and confiscated four tankers full of crude oil near a pipeline connecting the Luhais and Rumaylah North oil fields (50 km west of Basrah). There were no casualties in the incident.
456. July 11 - A coast guard was wounded during clashes with armed oil smugglers in the Shatt Al-Arab waterway near the port of Abu Al-Khasib (20 km south east of Basrah).
457. July 12 - In Mosul, the body of an Oil Protection Force (OPF) guard was found on 12 July. Yassin Mohasen Aayed, was killed by gunmen in al-Jesr al-Khames in western Mosul.
458. July 14 - An Iraqi oil tanker was destroyed during a US airstrike in the Shiite area of al-Ubaidi in east Baghdad.
459. July 17 - Just outside the northern town of Bayji, a Turkish truck driver died when a roadside IED targeted his vehicle. The vehicle was destroyed in the ensuing fire.
460. July 18 - In al-Latifiya insurgents hijacked a convoy of three tanker trucks carrying crude oil to the ad-Daura refinery. They killed the drivers took the vehicles wither cargo.
461. July 23 - three employees of Iraqi Oil Ministry were killed and another injured in a small-arms attack on their vehicle in Baghdad.

[Joe for Clark]

9. Which site does? -

I am aware of NO attack on the refinery lines - at all. And those lines up there going to Turkey just reopned - since the 2003 invasion - just reopened. I think the little bastards really thought this through before they did this one.

Joe

[Jacobin]

10. The site I linked in my post

And yes, some of the 460 plus attacks are on pipelines to and from refineries, but not all by any means.

What's your point?

[Joe for Clark]

11. My point is I am NOT talking about the whole country.

I am talking about the one major refinery town. There are pipelines all over the country. But really only one major refinery and one line going north. Guess where they intersect.

Joe

[Kelly Rupert]

12. Little bit off-point, but not sectioning out a Kurdish homeland

was one of the biggest mistakes of the decolonialization of the Middle East.

[Joe for Clark]

13. I agree.

[librechik]

14. yeah--and oil spill contaminating theTigris

water source for millions now polluted.

[stillcool]

16. here's something..

WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 The international oil market will still have to rely on Basra to supply Iraq's oil exports as an apparent attack shuts down the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline again.

The pipeline is key to increasing Iraq exports, providing the capacity to increased production. The Bush administration, during benchmark stump speeches last week, held up the newly reopened pipeline as a success story.
--------------------------------
Media reports are quoting sources on the ground that a pre-dawn bomb ripped open the pipeline between Kirkuk and Baiji, sending oil into the Tigris River, forcing water pumps in Tikrit and Baiji to shut down and threatening the supply into Baghdad.
Ben Lando, UPI Energy Editor
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/109832.html

Baghdad - An explosion along an oil pipeline extending from the northern Kirkuk oilfields to Bayji refineries caused damage to both the line and another parallel pipeline between Iraq and Turkey, on Tuesday. Twenty-six people including three militants were killed and 59 wounded in separate attacks and military operations across Iraq, according to local authorities.

The ensuing fire hit only a section of the Kirkuk-Bayji pipeline which runs over the River Tigris, but caused a huge oil leak and dense black smoke in the area.

Firefighters were struggling to contain the damage, a source in the local oil industry said. The explosion is expected to halt production at Bayji refineries, which supply more than half of Iraq's oil products.

According to a source in the water department in Salahaddin, the explosion caused oil to seep into the Tigris river damaging water stations and triggering their temporary closure.

The water supply up to 100 kilometres south of the explosion site was affected due to the unimpeded oil flow, the source added. Water used for irrigation purposes was similarly contaminated.

In the aftermath of the attack, a series of fires were reported along the banks of the Tigris as a result of the leak, said a member of Salahaddin province's civil defence department.

Health officials in Tikrit and Bayji have reported several cases of suffocation as a result of smoke inhalation. The dark clouds of smoke mixed with gas are said to have gathered in the skies from Bayji to Tikrit, 40 kilometres south of the explosion site.
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/109687.html

[Joe for Clark]

17. Outstanding post!!!

How did you get that map to shrink??

You did great man.

Joe

[stillcool]

18. I love maps..

if I can't picture it...it doesn't make sense...so I scour the web as needed.

[Disturbed]

20. Our Glorious Leader & his General said that the Surge is going

well & that "We are kickin' ass." GWB These are merely minor isolated incedents.

Reality is what the Busholini Regime says it is. Any other perceptions are illusions.

Don't worry. Be happy.

[Joe for Clark]

22. They will say that - and they got even CNN to go along with that

crap.

Fact remains - they are trying to squeeze ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag.

The bag breaks of its own weight eventually.

Surge my ass.

Joe

[Joe for Clark]

21. I read them - but I could never get them to fit right.

You did.

Joe

[Joe for Clark]

19. Look I am really just a history student that can trade securities.

That was a life I chose a long time ago - to be in finance.

I always thought I belonged in history though - just couldn't afford it.

I am telling you true, straight -these neocons are counting on a model from the Peloponnesian wars over 2000 years ago to defend the indefensible - they are.

Models change - paradigms change.

Our country - in the history of the world - is the only peoples to go to war to set OTHER peoples free. It has never happened before us. There is no model for us.

They experiment with politics - at our expense - at the expenes of every thing we ever fought for as a country.

I call bullshit.

Joe

[bvar22]

23. Isn't this oil from the Kurdish controlled area,

and didn't the Kurds just sign a private contract to deliver their oil to an American friend of Bush* (Hunt), bypassing the Iraqi government in Baghdad and the controversial "Oil Sharing Agreement"?

Coincidence?