Sabotage threatens Iraq's economy

By JUSTIN HUGGLER in BAGHDAD

Sabotage has left two fires burning out of control on the main pipeline exporting Iraqi oil to Turkey and the main pipe supplying water to Baghdad was bombed, flooding a motorway and leaving the city of five million without water.

This comes as a Reuters cameraman was shot dead while filming outside Iraq's main prison, which had earlier come under mortar attack.

The American-led occupation is going badly wrong before our eyes. Already US soldiers are dying daily in attacks and there is anarchy on the streets. As of yesterday, the Americans appeared to be facing an all-out assault on another front - on their efforts to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq.

This is the occupation that was supposed to pay for itself. All the Americans had to do was to get Iraq's vast oil reserves flowing out of the country and that would finance the occupation. The sabotage of the pipeline, which will take 10 days to repair, means at least US$70m in lost revenue.

The cost of the occupation, being almost exclusively borne by US taxpayers, is out of control. The Pentagon conservatively estimates it is costing US$5bn a month. Other analysts have put it at US$600bn over 10 years - bigger than the current record US federal deficit.

"The irony is that Iraq is a rich country that is temporarily poor," The American "administrator", Paul Bremer, said. "An event such as the explosion on the Kirkuk pipeline costs the Iraqi people US$7m a day and hurts the process of reconstruction." But it is not only the Iraqi people it costs. As long as the Americans are here, the US has to foot the cost of running Iraq.

Already the Americans are facing massive public opposition from Iraqis enraged by constant power cuts and severe fuel shortages. Now they may have to add to that water shortages, in the middle of August, with daily temperatures still above 40C. Iraqi children may have been playing happily in a flooded motorway underpass yesterday, jumping from the bridges, but that can be expected to be the only smiles if the occupation administration does not fulfil a promise to get water pumping.

And in the midst of the attacks on economic targets, three mortars were fired into Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, killing six Iraqis inside and injuring more than 70, the Americans admitted.

The dead Reuters cameraman was named as Mazen Dana, a Palestinian with years of experience in war zones. Just as the first fire on the oil pipeline, which started on Friday, was being brought under control overnight, another one started a few miles up the line. One could have been a misfortune, two looked like sabotage. The pipeline, which leads from the oil city of Kirkuk to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, is the main export route for oil from Iraq's northern oilfields. It was only reconnected for the first time since the war last week.

In a separate attack, witnesses saw two men on a motorbike leave something on a water pipe minutes before an explosion at the spot yesterday. The pipe is exposed because it runs over a motorway underpass. On their own, the oil pipeline explosions could have been the work of oil smugglers who make good money trucking Iraqi oil over the Turkish border, looking to protect their trade. On its own, the water pipe explosion could have been a bomb intended for a different target, such as an American convoy, that went wrong.

But when they are put together it looks as if the Iraqi resistance groups have begun to target Iraq's infrastructure.

A motive for the sabotage of the oil pipeline is simple enough. Ordinary Iraqis believe the Americans are here to steal their oil while they face fuel shortages inside Iraq. To them, attacking the pipeline is attacking American efforts to get the oil out of the country.

The bombing of the water pipe could be to stir up anger among ordinary Iraqis. British troops in Basra faced riots last weekend from Iraqis who had had enough of power cuts and an acute fuel shortage. Until the electricity and the fuel ran out, Basra had been quiet while the Americans took the heat in Baghdad. And the power went down in Basra because of sabotage on power lines, according to the British.

It is possible someone wants discontent brewing on Baghdad's streets. The motive of the attack on the prison was not clear: some speculated the intended target may have been American soldiers stationed inside the vast complex. A new resistance group, the Iraqi National Islamic Resistance Movement, released a tape shown on al-Jazeera yesterday saying: "This resistance is not a reaction to the American provocations against the Iraqi people or to the shortage of services ... but to kick out the occupiers as a matter of principle."

- THE INDEPENDENT


Herald Feature: Iraq