Saboteurs Blow Up Major Iraqi Pipeline
By D'arcy Doran
Associated Press
Saturday 16 August 2003
TIKRIT, Iraq -- Saboteurs blew up a major pipeline and stopped all oil flow from Iraq to Turkey, just three days after the pipeline between the two countries was reopened, officials said Saturday.
Meanwhile, a police officer once imprisoned for his opposition to Saddam Hussein was appointed the top Iraqi law enforcer, while attacks continued against U.S. forces.
Thamer al-Ghadaban, Iraq's acting oil minister, said at a news conference that the 46-inch-thick pipeline was "blown up" early Friday, sparking a fire that still raged Saturday.
U.S. soldiers were helping Iraqi oil workers contain the fire outside the northern town of Baiji on a section of the 600-mile pipeline from the northern city of Kirkuk to the Turkish city of Ceyhan.
"It could take several days to repair it and put it back in operation. It is a large pipeline with large volume of crude oil," al-Ghadaban said. "Our information is that explosives were used."
A Turkish energy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, had earlier attributed the pipeline problems to "telecommunications problems" and dismissed the possibility of sabotage, which has plagued Iraq's pipelines for months.
Crude oil began flowing through the pipeline on Wednesday, and Turkish officials said 350,000 barrels of oil was pumped that day.
Iraq has the world's second-largest proven crude reserves, at 112 billion barrels, but its pipelines, pumping stations and oil reservoirs are dilapidated after more than a decade of neglect. Northern Iraq, site of the giant Kirkuk oil fields, accounts for 40 percent of Iraq's oil production.
The Army has identified 47 projects in northern Iraq alone worth $295 million that need to be completed before oil production can return to its prewar levels, he said.
Engineers working for the state oil company were forced to cannibalize parts and equipment and use outdated technologies to keep the crude flowing during 12 years of U.N. economic sanctions imposed after the 1991 Gulf War.
The Army hopes it can bring the country's northern oil output to 770,000 barrels per day by the end of the year, which is still more than 50,000 barrels short of what was being produced daily before the war, said Col. Bobby Nicholson, chief engineer for the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division.
In Baghdad, Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who is overseeing the establishment of Iraq's interior ministry, announced Saturday that a police officer once imprisoned for speaking out against Saddam would be his senior deputy at the interior ministry.
Brig. Gen. Ahmed Ibrahim had been working as head of the Iraqi police's special investigations unit. During a police raid last month, he was shot in the right leg. As well as the weapons seized, that raid also netted a high-ranking member of the Saddam Fedayeen militia.
"Gen. Ibrahim's actions reflect tremendous courage, professionalism and dedication to duty," Kerik said in a statement.
A U.S. soldier was wounded Saturday when insurgents armed with a homemade bomb and rocket-propelled grenades attacked a patrol in the town of Baqouba, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, the military said.
The soldier was evacuated to a combat support hospital in stable condition.
Soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division conducted 11 raids across north-central Iraq and detained five people, including three suspected regime loyalists and a man who allegedly had threatened to kill a U.S. soldier, MacDonald said.
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