Iraqi insurgents waging 'all-out war' on oil industry: minister

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/iraqoileconomy

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqi insurgents are waging an all-out war on the country's vital oil industry which has lost nearly eight billion dollars in revenue since last year's US-led invasion, Oil Minister Thamer Ghadban said.


"We want to tell the Iraqi people that there is an all-out war against the country's oil infrastructure," Ghadban told reporters as he toured the capital's Dura refinery, which came under mortar fire last week.


Ghadban estimated lost export revenue from sabotage at about eight billion dollars since the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq (news - web sites), which sits on the world's second largest reserves of crude oil.


"Exports are now limited only to the south, there are no exports in the north," he added. Oil exports from southern terminals in Basra are averaging 1.8 million barrels per day.


Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) ordered his supporters to sabotage oil facilities in Iraq and the Gulf, in an audiotape attributed to the Al-Qaeda leader broadcast on an Islamist website last month.



A oil refinery worker inspects broken pipes and equipment at the Dura Oil refinery in southern Baghdad, as Iraqi Minister of Oil Thamer Abbas Ghadban toured the site. Iraqi insurgents are waging an all-out war on the country's vital oil industry which has lost nearly eight billion dollars in revenue since last year's US-led invasion, Oil Minister Thamer Ghadban said.(AFP/Sabah Arar

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. this is hurting Bush

because the oil is the only reason we went into Iraq in the first place, and the Iraqis know it. Maybe if we'd done something to shore up the security and infrastructure of the people, there wouldn't be so many now willing to destroy the oil infrastructure.

It will be ironic when Bush's actions in Iraq and throughout the world wind up providing the USwith less oil rather than more.

[slor]

2. Amen to that...

less oil, and a Islamic theocracy too...Mission Accomplished!

[two gun sid]

4. I can't believe the awesome stupidity

of the pentagon and war planners. What did they think the insurgents were gonna do? Stand in formation and slug it out toe to toe?

[daleo]

3. "An all out war FOR the country's oil infrastructure"

I think that would be a better way of putting it. It has been an all out war for the country's oil and oil infrastructure from the very beginning.

[FloridaPat]

5. Last week I read the current gov't in Iraq is ready to privatize the oil

wells. Gee, just like SS here! Anyway, Bush will not be happy until those contracts get signed. So I guess the idea is to have an election, get the right people in office through cheating, get them to sign the privatization of everything in Iraq and legally steal the country into poverty. I am amazed that most Americans don't get this. The Iraqis will be left with nothing because you can bet the money to buy the oil wells from the "people of Iraq" will end up everywhere but in their pockets.

I sure hope there is a special hell for these people that cause so much grief and murder in the quest for their greed.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. We tried to tell them this would happen

I bet the Halliburton folks are laughing all the way to the bank.

To folks like them and Carlyl Group this is what it's all about, destruction and chaos. That's when they make the really big bucks.

[leftchick]

10. Exactly!

but I thought this war was all about "Our Freedoms"!

:puke:

[Just Me]

7. Well, hell, whatever revenue was generated did NOT benefit Iraqis.

Babies are dying,...Mommas suffering,...Dads struggling.

They weren't delivered "freedom",...they are surviving pure hell.

If the money their country generated from its own natural resources were actually being fed back into the prosperity of its own people,...perhaps "DEMOCRACY WOULD REIGN"!!!

But, hell NO!!! The neoCONimperialists had a "free-market" plan to sell the whole freakin' country off to the highest bidder!!!!

God,...I hate evil capitalists! Please forgive me as I cannot forgive such enemies of humanity!!!!

[reprobate]

11. "Evil Capitalists"? For shame, JM.

That phrase is an oxymoron. Unregulated capitalism such as america now supports is the only thing I recognize as 'evil' today.

Capitalism as practiced in america is destroying the world's environment, making the employee poorer and the employer richer, and alienating most of the world against us.

Capitalism is a zero sum game. For me to win, you must lose because the energy of the worker is appropriated by the owner, without compensation. A system in which the worker shares in the profit, with a small portion returned to the owner class would be much faired. I fact in every workplace that it's been tried it has proven far more efficient.

And this is coming from a former republican and business owner. I've said for decades that I would be a repub again, if only they would.

[American Parnell]

8. Interesting

If only the dinosaurs knew that millions of years later, we'd be waging wars over their black, sludgey remains...

[no_hypocrisy]

9. Loss of oil, not loss of military lives. THAT'S how to get to * and his

corrupt administration.