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The mounting cost of havoc in
Iraq
By Ron Synovitz
PRAGUE
- Engineers and United States soldiers are still
struggling to repair a key oil-export pipeline after it
was set on fire twice in apparent guerrilla attacks
during the weekend.
Large clouds of black smoke
continue to billow from the pipeline as experts inspect
the damage and try to contain the blazes. The pipeline
links the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk to the Turkish
Mediterranean port of Ceyhan and is considered a crucial
source of income for Iraq's struggling economy.
L Paul Bremer, the top US administrator for
Iraq, said in Baghdad that Iraqi people are losing
revenues worth about US$7 million a day as a result of
the damage and temporary shutdown.
"It's quite
clear that the economic reconstruction must take place
against a background of political transition and
political transformation. Today, Iraq finds itself poor
because of the astonishing mismanagement of the Iraqi
economy over the last four decades and the great costs
to the Iraqi people of the political sabotage which
continues in Iraq - including the attack on the Kirkuk
pipeline, the cost of which is $7 million a day to the
Iraqi people," Bremer said.
US officials suggest
the damage could ultimately cost as much as $100 million
in lost revenues - a figure based on Bremer's remarks
and estimates by Guy Shields, a spokesman for the US-led
coalition, about how long the pipeline is expected to be
out of service. "Different reports that we have seen
have been anywhere from 10 days to two weeks. But they
still have a lot to do to find out exactly what needs to
get done," Shields said.
The northern oil
pipeline had started to carry Iraqi oil to international
markets on August 13, but was shut down on August 15
after it was ruptured by an explosion and fire broke
out.
Iraq's acting oil minister, Thamir Ghadban,
said that saboteurs attacked a remote part of the
pipeline in the Iraqi desert. On August 17, just as that
blaze was being brought under control, a second
explosion ignited another section of the pipeline
nearby.
Sabotage also is blamed for an explosion
that ruptured a water pipeline serving northern Baghdad.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says that
attack has deprived 300,000 people in the Iraqi capital
of running water. But authorities say they hope the
water pipeline can be repaired much quicker than the oil
pipeline.
Meanwhile, the US military says that
six Iraqis were killed and 59 injured when three mortar
rounds were fired by unknown attackers into a US-guarded
prison on the western outskirts of Baghdad on Saturday
night. The US military has admitted that US soldiers on
a tank shot dead a Reuters cameraman, 43-year-old
Palestinian Mazen Dana, while he was recording video
images outside of the Abu Gharib prison.
A
spokesman said that the US soldiers mistakenly thought
Dana was aiming a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher at
them and that they fired at the cameraman in self
defense. The last images recorded by Dana's camera
confirm he was pointing his camera straight at the
advancing US tank when he was killed.
A Danish
soldier also was killed along with two Iraqi men during
the weekend to the west of Basra when the soldier's
patrol tried to arrest a group of looters who were
stealing copper power cables from the
electrical-distribution network. Rampant looting of
electricity cables and breakdowns of decrepit equipment
also are contributing to chronic power and fuel
shortages across Iraq.
The wave of recent
attacks on civilian and military facilities is seen as a
new anticoalition resistance strategy of hitting targets
with the purpose of causing havoc and sewing discontent
among Iraqis toward the US-led coalition.
On
Sunday, the Qatar-based satellite television channel
al-Jazeera broadcast a new videotape allegedly recorded
by a group that is fighting against US forces in Iraq.
The tape showed five men in battle dress and covered
faces carrying assault rifles and shoulder-fired missile
launchers. One of the men read a prepared statement from
the so-called Iraqi National Islamic Resistance Movement
and pledged to escalate operations against US forces in
the country.
"The Iraqi resistance, as it is
well known, has started to make substantial progress on
the domestic front, putting the enemy on the defensive
rather than offensive. And [the Iraqi National Islamic
Resistance Group's] varied and frequent attacks have
prevented the occupiers from planting themselves on
Iraqi soil, thanks to God. The enemy is suffering so
many casualties on a daily basis that this news is being
severely blacked out by the media to protect [US
President George W] Bush's chances in the forthcoming
election and to protect the policies of the White House
from the American public," he said.
The masked
man in the video also said that his group's actions are
aimed at evicting US forces from Iraq. The tape made no
specific reference to any of the recent attacks on the
Iraqi pipelines.
Charles Heatly, a public
affairs spokesman for the US-led coalition, said that
the recent sabotage is aimed at undermining the
authority of Iraq's appointed transitional government.
He admitted that protecting the pipelines remains a
challenge. "Clearly, protecting Iraq's oil facilities
against attack is a major priority," he said. "It's
something that's very, very important because production
of oil in this country is essential - not only for
producing some income for the government to be able to
spend on reconstruction and on basic services, but also
in terms of meeting domestic demand for basic fuels."
Heatly blamed the sabotage on suspected
loyalists of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime and foreign
militants who Washington says have entered Iraq recently
to mount attacks on US forces. "While we are facing
deliberate sabotage by members of the previous regime,
[security of basic infrastructure] will remain a
challenge. And that is why the work that the coalition
military are doing in hunting down these elements is
absolutely crucial in this area," he said.
But
with coalition forces already stretched thin to provide
security in cities and towns across Iraq, US officials
admit the coalition is unable on its own to protect
pipelines that stretch across hundreds of miles of
desert.
Heatly said that long-term plans call
for more Iraqis to be trained to protect the pipeline
routes. But that process takes time as candidates are
processed and subjected to strict security checks and
training.
"We are [setting] up a lot of fixed
protection services - both to protect the oil
infrastructure and the electricity infrastructure. In
total at the moment, we have about 5,500 Iraqi personnel
who are guarding the oil infrastructure. That includes
[oil] well heads, pumping stations, refineries,
pipelines, and of course, a lot of the
electricity-generating facilities that are attached to
them," Heatly said.
Members of the new Iraqi
interim government say the motives for the mortar attack
on the Abu Gharib prison remain unknown. But Governing
Council member Samir Shakir Mahmud Sumaidy said he
thinks the attackers have "lost their way" and have no
strategy other than to create mayhem and chaos. Sumaidy
said that the violence will certainly not hasten the
departure of coalition forces and probably, on the
contrary, will prolong their stay.
Copyright
(c) 2002, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of
Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington
DC 20036
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