Pipeline raids take toll in Iraq

Pipeline raids take toll in Iraq
hxxp://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0918iraq-oil18.html

Auszug:

BAGHDAD - The sharp rise in attacks on Iraq's oil pipelines in recent weeks has substantially impaired the country's production, dealing a blow to the economy and threatening the struggling reconstruction effort, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.

Insurgents are bombing pipelines and other parts of Iraq's oil infrastructure almost daily, another sign that security is deteriorating beyond the control of U.S. military and Iraqi security forces.
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Although record-high oil prices have helped compensate for the production decline, industry analysts expect Iraq to bring in far less oil revenue than the $15 billion previously projected for the year.

As a result, U.S. taxpayers might be forced to make up for shortages in revenue that Pentagon officials once promised would cover much of the reconstruction costs.
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In an appearance before Congress in March 2003, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Iraqi oil could bring in up to $100 billion over two to three years.

Just this week, however, Bush administration officials asked Congress to divert $450 million earmarked for reconstruction to increase oil production. That's on top of $1.7 billion dedicated to rebuilding the industry.

"The premise was that we'd go to Iraq, and oil would provide the money. That's not what is happening, and somebody is going to have to pay," said Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.
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The spread of attacks to the south has been accompanied by an increase in their sophistication, experts say. Insurgents have picked junctions of multiple lines or aging pipelines that are especially vulnerable.

Die US-Invasion in dem Irak schreitet nicht so fort wie gepkant. Die Ölproduktion wurde gemäß von Paul Wolfowitz geplant, das sie sich wesentlich steigern wird - und das man so die Ölpreise in den US$20ern halten könnte.

Die Realität sagt etwas anderes aus. Die US-Invasion in dem Irak erweist sich an allen Fronten sehr viel teurer zu sein.  

Die Kosten des Kriegs eskalieren an beiden Fronten in den wirtschaftlichen Kosten und dem Verlust an Menschenleben und schweren und schwersten Verletzungen.

Zum Beispiel - kommt hier ein weiterer Auszug von dem UPI:

hxxp://about.upi.com/exclusive/UPI-20040915-021124-6165R

17,000 GIs not listed as casualties

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- Nearly 17,000 service members medically evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan are absent from public Pentagon casualty reports, according to military data reviewed by United Press International. The Pentagon said most don't fit the definition of casualties, but a veterans' advocate said they should all be counted.

In addition to those evacuations, 32,684 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan now out of the military sought medical attention from the Department of Veterans Affairs by July 22, according to VA reports obtained by UPI. The number of those visits to VA doctors that were related to war is unknown.

The military has evacuated 16,765 individual service members from Iraq and Afghanistan for injuries and ailments not directly related to combat, according to the U.S. Transportation Command, which is responsible for the medical evacuations. Most are from Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The Pentagon's public casualty reports, available at xwww.defenselink.mil, list only service members who died or were wounded in action. The Pentagon's own definition of a war casualty provided to UPI in December describes a casualty as, "Any person who is lost to the organization by having been declared dead, duty status - whereabouts unknown, missing, ill, or injured."

In a statement Wednesday, the Pentagon gave a different definition that included casualty descriptions by severity and type and said most medical evacuations did not count. "The great majority of service members medically evacuated from Operation Iraqi Freedom are not casualties, by either Department of Defense definitions or the common understanding of the average newspaper reader." It cited such ailments as "muscle strain, back pain, kidney stones, diarrhea and persistent fever" as non-casualty evacuations.

"Casualty reports released to the public are generally confined to fatalities and those wounded in action," the statement said.

Die Kombination von eskalierenden Feindseligkeiten in dem Irak bürdet dem US-Budget weitere Lasten auf und sehr viel wichtiger wirken sie als eine indirekte Besteuerung auf alle globale Volkswirtschaften durch die gestiegenen und weiter steigenden Ölpreise.

Der Ölschock wird sehr viel länger andauern, als die meisten erwarten und sich vorstellen können.