THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

New, reopened wells are coming online; North still bottled up

By Chip Cummins in Basra, Iraq, and
Hassan Hafidh in Amman, Jordan

Iraqi engineers have significantly lifted crude-oil output capacity in the country's southern fields, delivering a short-term shot in the arm to Baghdad's new government and underscoring Iraq's vast geologic potential despite increasing sectarian violence and insurgency.

For more than three years, Iraq's oil industry has struggled to claw back production lost during the U.S.-led invasion and its chaotic aftermath. Iraq's Northern fields still are largely bottled up, frustrating that aim for the time being. The recent output gains in the South come from new or long-shut-down wells that are flowing again, representing the first significant capacity gains since of the fall of Saddam Hussein. The new additions have reversed a sharp decline in output starting late last year and continuing through the first two months of this year.

Amid today's soaring global oil demand, the higher production in Iraq also offers a counterpoint to much of the oil-producing world, where state-run and publicly traded companies alike are chasing oil deposits in increasingly difficult and expensive places. Even Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest exporter, is turning to its harder-to-reach heavy crude to slake world markets.

Despite its troubles, Iraq remains one of the world's largest oil producers, pumping 2% of daily global demand. The recent gains in southern Iraq aren't enough to lower global prices in a marketplace where demand growth has been outstripping new supplies. Amid stretched markets, even minor disruptions in places like Nigeria have sent prices soaring. The extra Iraqi capacity, how-

Southern Iraq's oil output jumps, aiding global supply
ever, provides a welcome cushion.

In Iraq, war and sanctions have long kept production from living up to the country's vast potential, based on its estimated reserves of oil under the ground. Some experts have warned that years of poor oilfield management under Mr. Hussein and damage caused by looters and saboteurs in the past three years may have permanently damaged the country's big reservoirs. The recent output jump suggests Iraqi oil fields still can be tapped relatively easily once oil-field workers get a chance to work them properly.

Despite heightened violence in Basra recently, the nearby Southern fields have remained relatively secure and accessible. Iraqi and U. S. engineers and contractors there have spent most of their post- invasion reconstruction efforts fixing above- ground infrastructure such as pumping stations, pipelines and processing plants. Now, they are turning their attention underground.

Officials from Iraq's stateowned South Oil Co., based in Basra, say the production gains come after they repaired, reopened or simply hooked up dozens of older, nonproducing wells and drilled some new ones. In recent weeks, the newly activated wells have boosted output in the South by about a fifth, to two million barrels a day, from 1.65 million barrels a day, they say.

The Southern oil region is now pumping as much as it did before the invasion three years ago, according to South Oil. As of now, there is no outside verification for those figures, but production estimates from South Oil officials have generally matched reported output fromthird parties in the past. (Unofficial production could be even higher amid widespread allegations of crude-oil smuggling.)

"Now, we are able to resume normal production from the south," said Jabbar el-Leaby, managing director of South Oil, in a phone interview from his office in Basra.

The success is a welcome turnaround from January, when South Oil was struggling with a number of political and bureaucratic hurdles that delayed necessary oil-field work. Late last year and early this year, Southern crude-oil production and exports sagged sharply.

This month, Iraqi officials also managed to sell significant quantities of crude from Iraq's Northern fields for the first time in almost a year. The oil was pumped in fits and starts along an export pipeline and into storage tanks in Turkey. Insurgent attacks and maintenance problems have prevented that line from operating reliably for much of the past three years.

That has kept overall Iraqi production significantly below prewar levels of about 2.5 million barrels a day. Iraq briefly approached prewar production levels in 2004 only to see output slide again.

The oil industry remains a prime target of attacks amid the country's growing unrest. During the weekend, unidentified gunmen kidnapped the managing director of North Oil Co., the state-owned production company in the North, as he was attending meetings in Baghdad. Growing unrest in southern Iraq could unwind the recent gains. There have been isolated protests and threats of strikes from locals looking for work or oil-field hands dissatisfied with pay. Sectarian and insurgency-related violence also could spill into the fields, stretching for miles over dusty, brush-covered desert.

Mr. Leaby said big problems persist, including a lack of adequate funding from the Ministry of Oil in Baghdad. Mr. Leaby's independentminded South Oil has jostled with the ministry over funding and control in the past. "We [will be] able to maintain this level of production and even increase it if the ministry renders us financial and administrative support," he said, without specifying any financial requirements.

Mr. Leaby said South Oil plans to increase output to 2.25 million barrels a day by the end of this year. Many production forecasts from Iraqi and U.S. officials in Baghdad have proved too optimistic in the past. U.S. military engineers, who are working with South Oil engineers on several projects, sayWestern contractors are expected to finish by the end of the year a handful of big jobs that could help bring on new production.

One of those projects is hooking up and turning on more unfinished or capped wells, according to U.S. Navy Capt. Michael Sherbak, chief of oil projects for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Baghdad. The wells were drilled years ago. Some were never completed because of a lack of parts, while others were shut down prematurely. Army engineers and their contractors are planning to help South Oil get 60 of these wells on line by year end, Capt. Sherbak said.

I trust and will continue to trust IBC DAILY COUNTS until I have valid reason not to.

Iraq Body Count's John Sloboda gave an interview to the BBC and published on IBC's website "Speculation is no substitute: a defence of Iraq Body Count".

In the interview and in the "Speculation is no substitute: a defence of Iraq Body Count", Sloboda insults Media Lens, John Pilger, Dahr Jamail, Les Roberts, Stephen Soldz and myself (but I assure you, I am delighted to be in such a wonderful company and I hope to deserve such an honor!)

Our crime: we dared to ask a few questions about IBC.

Also, he completely denigrates the Lancet study and says: "We've always said our work is an undercount, you can't possibly expect that a media-based analysis will get all the deaths. Our best estimate is that we've got about half the deaths that are out there."

This means that according to Sloboda and IBC there would be at maximum 70,000 civilians killed. But you should read the article. There is much more!

This is the link.

They are using the lowest number they can find to suggest, for example, that the results of the invasion have been less severe than the consequences of leaving Saddam Hussein in power. But as Stephen Soldz, Director of the Center for Research, Evaluation, and Program Development at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, has noted:
[T]here is simply no reason to believe that even a large fraction of Iraqi civilian combat-related deaths are ever reported in the Western media, much less, have the two independent reports necessary to be recorded in the IBC database. Do these few agencies really have enough Iraqi reporters on retainer to cover the country? Are these reporters really able comprehensively to cover deaths in insurgent-held parts of Iraq? How likely is it that two reporters from distinct media outlets are going to be present at a given site where deaths occur? How many of the thousands of US bombings have been investigated by any reporter, Western or Iraqi? Simply to state these questions is to emphasize the fragmentary nature of the reporting that occurs and thus the limitations of the IBC database."
(Source: Soldz, 'When Promoting Truth Obscures the Truth: More on Iraqi Body Count and Iraqi Deaths,' ZNet, February 5, 2006)

A leading epidemiologist describes IBC as "run by amateurs", adding:
It is easy to calculate the sensitivity of their surveillance system. They would take another list or independent sample, and see the fraction of that sample that appeared in their data base. I have asked them to do this over a year ago, they have not.
(Email to Media Lens, March 23, 2006)

We asked IBC why these and other elementary suggestions made by leading experts in the field have been ignored - IBC have refused to respond.

In its report 'A dossier of civilian casualties 2003-2005', IBC noted that just three press agencies - Associated Press, Agence France Presse, and Reuters - provided one-third of all stories. Reliance on Western media is not deemed a problem, however, because they "are unlikely to suppress conservative estimates which can act as a corrective to inflated claims".
The report added:
"We have not made use of Arabic or other non English language sources, except where these have been published in English. The reasons are pragmatic. We consider fluency in the language of the published report to be a key requirement for accurate analysis, and English is the only language in which all team members are fluent. It is possible that our count has excluded some victims as a result." (Ibid)
This is a remarkable explanation for such a serious omission, particularly in light of the immense media attention afforded to the IBC figures.
The website adds:
"The project relies on the professional rigour of the approved reporting agencies. It is assumed that any agency that has attained a respected international status operates its own rigorous checks before publishing items (including, where possible, eye-witness and confidential sources). By requiring that two independent agencies publish a report before we are willing to add it to the count, we are premising our own count on the self-correcting nature of the increasingly inter-connected international media network."
Not only is IBC's surveillance-based total for Iraqi civilian deaths one of the most widely cited by journalists, it is also the lowest. Les Roberts, lead author of the Lancet report, told us last year:
"There are now at least 8 independent estimates of the number or rate of deaths induced by the invasion of Iraq. The source most favored by the war proponents (Iraqbodycount.org) is the lowest. Our estimate is the third from highest. Four of the estimates place the death toll above 100,000. The studies measure different things. Some are surveys, some are based on surveillance which is always incomplete in times of war. The three lowest estimates are surveillance based." (Roberts, email to Media Lens, August 22, 2005)
Whereas the Lancet report estimated around 100,000 civilian deaths in October 2004, IBC reported 17,000 at that time. The Lancet authors found:
"Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths." (www.globalresearch.ca/articles/LAN410A.html)

ICAN PREDICTIONS MADE IN JUNE 2006

1,050 Iraqi civilians died violently in June 2006.

950 Iraqi civilians died violently in July 2006.

ican wrote:
"...The USA had the most to lose by waiting for the world community to help..."

Show us how this is so - with concrete evidence, not by unsubstantiated rhetoric?

"Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places"-1996;
and,
Osama Bin Laden: Text of Fatwah Urging Jihad Against Americans-1998
http://www.mideastweb.org/osambinladen1.htm
{scroll down to find them both}

Al-Qaida Statement Warning Muslims Against Associating With The Crusaders And Idols; Translation By JUS; Jun 09, 2004
Al-Qaida Organization of the Arab Gulf; 19 Rabbi Al-Akhir 1425
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg00035.html

To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.
www.c-span.org/resources/pdf/hjres114.pdf
...
Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;
...
The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.

At the time we invaded Iraq (3/20/2003), al-Qaeda was in control of 12 villages in northeastern Iraq. USA Special Forces and Special Mission Operators, leading Kurdish Peshmerga fighters invaded these al-Qaeda camps, collecting evidence, taking prisoners, and killing all those who resisted. {except, unfortunately, those who escaped}

Also at the time we invaded Iraq (3/20/2003), several hundred foreign fighters from Egypt, Sudan, Syria, and Libya were being trained in a camp south of Baghdad. After the USA invaded Iraq, USA marines killed them all. {Fortunately, none escaped}

www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm
U.S. intelligence estimates put the total number of fighters who underwent instruction in Bin Ladin-supported camps in Afghanistan from 1996 through 9/11 at 10,000 to 20,000.78

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. ...

... Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Book: Al-Zarqawi: al Qaeda's Second Generation by Jordanian journalist, Fouad Hussein.
Al Qaeda's seven phase plan for world conquest.

Phase 1, the "wakeup call." Spectacular terrorist attacks on the West
(like September 11, 2001) get the infidels (non-Moslems) to make war on
Islamic nations. This arouses Moslems, and causes them to flock to al
Qaedas banner. This phase is considered complete.

Phase 2, the "eye opening." This is the phase we are in, where al Qaeda
does battle with the infidels, and shows over a billion Moslems how
it's done. This phase is supposed to be completed by next year.

Phase 3, "the rising." Millions of aroused (in a terrorist sense)
Moslems go to war against Islam's enemies for the rest of the decade.
Especially heavy attacks are made against Israel. It is believed that
major damage in Israel will force the world to acknowledge al Qaeda as a major power, and negotiate with it.

Phase 4, "the downfall." By 2013, al Qaeda will control the Persian
Gulf, and all its oil, as well as most of the Middle East. This will
enable al Qaeda to cripple the American economy, and American military
power.

Phase 5, "the Caliphate." By 2016, the Caliphate (one government for
all Moslem nations) will be established. At this point, nearly all
Western cultural influences will be eliminated from Islamic nations. The
Caliphate will organize a mighty army for the next phase.

Phase 6, "world conquest." By 2022, the rest of the world will be
conquered by the righteous and unstoppable armies of Islam. This is the
phase that Osama bin Laden has been talking about for years.

Phase 7, "final victory." All the world's inhabitants will be forced to
either convert to Islam, or submit (as second class citizens) to
Islamic rule. This will be completed by 2025 or thereabouts.

Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi
www.dni.gov/release_letter_101105.html
A summary of Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi July 9, 2005.
...
*The war in Iraq is central to al Qa'ida's global jihad.
*The war will not end with an American departure.
*Their strategic vision is one of inevitable conflict with a call by al-Zawahiri for political action equal to military action.
*Popular support must be maintained at least until jihadist rule has been established.
*More than half the struggle is taking place "in the battlefield of the media."
...

Booklet by the Pakistani jihadist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure)
... [characterizes] the U.S., Israel and India as existential enemies of Islam and lists eight reasons for global jihad. These include {but are not limited to} the restoration of Islamic sovereignty to all lands where Muslims were once ascendant, including Spain, "Bulgaria, Hungary, Cyprus, Sicily, Ethiopia, Russian Turkistan and Chinese Turkistan. . . Even parts of France reaching 90 kilometers outside Paris."

Ican,

You can't simply discount all sources of news as being liberal liars because they don['t agree with your opinion of reality, sorry. And the numbers aren't actually that far off from the numbers at IBC.
I don't "discount all sources of news as being liberal liars." I discount only those that have demonstrated repeatedly that they are liberal liars.

Are you manually tabulating the data from the IBC table, per month, or is there a monthly breakdown that you are citing?
I have manually calculated data (i.e., used a calculator) from the IBC table. I did it for the entire period 01/01/2003 to 12/31/2005. Then I manually calculated it for the period 01/01/2006 to 05/31/2006. Then I manually calculated it for June 2006.

Cycloptichorn

ican wrote:

I trust and will continue to trust IBC DAILY COUNTS until I have valid reason not to.

By IBC's own admission it way undercounts casualities.

...

Ican, your source for body counts sucks. Go find something more reliable.

It doesn't matter to you that the numbers from IBC are known to be lower than reality? You prefer to use them anyways?

Cycloptichorn

ican, Why do you keep confusing Osama with Saddam? Purposely, or is it your twisted brain?