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| Iraq | |
| NY Times: Looting Leaves Iraq’s Oil Industry in Ruins | |
| 2003-06-10 | |
| Via Drudge; EFL - just the Despair and Quagmire left so you capture the Times coverage flavor BASRA — Standing under the merciless sun outside his office, surrounded by employees shouting angrily about pay, Jabbar Ali al-Leaby, the director general of the South Oil Company, lost the little patience he had left. "Be satisfied with what you got," he told the men. "Do you know what I went through to get even this money for you?" "Ya buncha whining idjits!" It was only three hours into the workday, but Mr. Leaby's frustrations started, as they do every morning, when he arrived around 8 to the lone refurbished office in a complex of buildings so thoroughly ransacked that birds dart through the upper stories. Employees of South Oil, Iraq's leading oil producer before the war, are now idle because looting has brought most of the company to a standstill. Instead of standing around demanding pay for work not done, why aren't these fools out protecting their work infrastructure...oh, I forgot. It's all the fault of the Merkins "The other day, there was looting and sabotage at the North Rumaila field," Mr. Leaby said. "The day before that, at the Zubayr field. For three months, I've been talking, talking, talking about this, and I'm sick of it." This is now the state of the Iraqi oil industry, custodian of the world's third largest oil reserves — an estimated 112 billion barrels — and the repository of hope for the United States-led alliance and the Iraqi people themselves. Money from oil, the Bush administration has said repeatedly, will drive Iraq's economic revival, which in turn will foster the country's political stability. Many Iraqis agree. Yet from the vast Kirkuk oil field in the north to the patchwork of rich southern fields around Basra, Iraq's oil industry, once among the best-run and most smartly equipped in the world, is in tatters. Looting, sabotage and the continued lack of security at oil facilities are the most recent problems the industry and its American overseers must address in order to get petroleum flowing again, especially for export. Quagmire! I tell ya!
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| Posted by:Frank G |
| #4 Jeez, Hitler had to pay Goebbels good money to write this sort of thing. Now the NYT does it for free. I predict that soon Uday will sue the US in Belgian court for allowing looters to strip his palaces bare. Hilary will then take up the cause of unemployed Iraqi civil servants. |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2003-06-10 17:46:53 |
| #3 "Iraq's oil industry, once among the best-run and most smartly equipped in the world" Until this p.o.s. propaganda, the story was that the equipment was ALREADY run-down and obsolete from 12 years of sanctions and neglect. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-06-10 16:16:57 |
| #2 "It's horrible, I tell you. 170,000 barrels of oil carried off while the Americans were guarding the archaeological museum!" |
| Posted by: Mike 2003-06-10 13:03:41 |
| #1 well the museum story is gone - the powers back up everywhere but Baghdad, and some progress there - waters back in most places - food supplies doing well - main utility problems are phones and sanitation - and progress on sanitation. Looted ministries recovering. They (NYT) have got to complain about SOMETHING. right? |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-06-10 12:32:04 |