Iraq pipeline guards doubled

[NNN0LHI]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3159135.stm

The US-led administration in Iraq is to more than double the number of guards protecting oil installations, as fears rise of a concerted campaign by saboteurs to disrupt Iraq's infrastructure.

The contract to provide a further 6,500 guards along Iraq's main oil pipeline to Turkey has been awarded to an international security company already working in Iraq; most of the new guards are expected to be Iraqis.

They will be joining the more than 5,000 Iraqis already watching the 1,000-kilometre-long (600 miles) structure.

The announcement follows a spate of attacks at the weekend on Iraq's dilapidated infrastructure, including two fires on a northern section of the oil pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan and the blowing up of a water main in Baghdad.

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[Systematic Chaos]

1. So, let me get this straight....

There are already 5,000 IRAQIS guarding these installations, and now they want to put 6,500 Americans there with them, to do the same job?

The way the Iraqis feel about us about now it sounds to me like there will be way too much infighting to get a damn thing done. Am I completely off base here? :shrug:

[realFedUp]

2. It's all about the oil pipelines, stupid.

:-)

[Systematic Chaos]

4. Heh, I'm not THAT stupid....

Just saying that this plan is probably the WORST of all possible ways to increase security.

I think they need to just give this pipe dream (pun most certainly intended) up and bring our boys back NOW!

[realFedUp]

6. amen.

I wasn't calling you stupid of course.

[Old and In the Way]

3. Prediction

Putting more Iraqis on pipeline security will not stop the sabotauge.

[htuttle]

5. Company...Link Arms!

If you should see an RPG heading toward the pipeline, make like a soccer goalie! Protect the pipeline with your body!

:eyes:

[monobrau]

7. Who profits from this?

Let's see, who stands to reap the most benefit from pipeline sabatoge?
Wouldn't it be the company who gets paid to put out the fire and repair it?

[reprobate]

8. Some of us predicted this a year ago.

It seems an impossible task to keep a pipeline from being damaged in a country that is in the midst of rejecting an occupying army. And the job of punching holes in pipelines is really a simple one.

Just take a .50 caliber rifle from a mile away and put big holes in the thing. I would guess that if the pipe is full you will have enough hydrostatic shock imparted to the oil so as to split the pipe. Don't know how far apart the check valves are, but you should be able to destroy a good chunk of the pipeline between check valves.

Wasn't the Gang That Can't Think Straight briefed on this before they decided to invade?

Guess not.

[nostamj]

12. "take a .50 caliber rifle"

check out the thread on the (Republic of) Georgia blackout.

a few potshots and the entire country went black...

[beanball]

9. Help protect shrubs oil

send in the republica guard,Col.Tom DeLay and the TexAss rangers to the rescue.

[legin]

10. 6,500 gaurds

Should be good for a few professional mercenaries from whatever countries around the world, and added to a rotten job, with low morale, potentially interesting.

[study_war_no_more]

11. six hundred miles of pipeline?

so thats ten per mile? per shift? per year? wheres my calculator?
You have ten tons of canarys in a one ton truck your job is to keep nine tons of canarys in the air at the same time.

[NickB79]

13. Gee, it shouldn't be hard to get infiltrators into the guards now

Out of those 5000 Iraqi guards, I'm sure at least some of them lost family members to the Bush assault, or lost their homes, or lost better jobs than standing in the middle of a friggin desert guarding a pipe. How many of those do you think are sympathetic to the resistance fighting going on? Hell, even if they're not sympathetic, considering how crappy the economy is in Iraq, it shouldnt take more than a few thousand dollars to buy a few off. End result, Iraqi resistance will have informers on the inside, telling them when guards rotate in and out. Or, just pay a few guards to conveniently disappear during their shifts and leave a half-mile gap in the security line.

Unless they invest millions to protect than line, it will never stay open. A few sticks of TNT, a homemade bomb, an RPG or even a heavy machine gun are all that are needed to rupture the line, and those are cheap and plentiful in post-war Iraq.

[samsingh]

14. that won't be enough

too many openings.

[realFedUp]

15. Your taxpayer dollars at work....

no new transmission lines...but money to guard the pipelines
so Unocal, Chevron et al can profit.