Thread: Iraq/Dinar News. 09/05 to 01/14/07

Originally Posted by kiko

Does anyone if the CBI was also down for 10 days last years??

Maybe it has been told over here that I don't know!

From the Auction history as a guide I have to say this is a first....

Hi,

Is there any way we can get confirmation about Art V111 being in place and when.

Originally Posted by abbey56

Hi,

Is there any way we can get confirmation about Art V111 being in place and when.

(1)4. The International Advisory and Monitoring Board has a meeting scheduled Oct 31 , 2006. When they meet the Iraqi Govt can Request control of the oil proceeds from the IAMB and Resend Resolution 1637 and sign article VIII and trade thier curency internationally.


Go to page 29 post 294. There are several posts regarding this

That was before the "cleanup". No clue now

Adds U.S. will not put more pressure on Iraqi government than it can bear

WASHINGTON - In a somber but combative pre-election review of a long and brutal war, President Bush conceded Wednesday that the United States is taking heavy casualties in Iraq and said, "I know many Americans are not satisfied with the situation" there.

"I'm not satisfied either," he said at a speech and question and answer session at the White House 13 days before midterm elections.

Despite conceding painful losses, Bush said victory was essential in Iraq as part of the broader war on terror."We're winning and we will win, unless we leave before the job is done," he said.

Sectarian struggles
Bush said that as those fighting American and Iraqi forces change their strategies, the United States is also adjusting its military tactics.

"Americans have no intention of taking sides in a sectarian struggle or standing in the crossfire between rival factions," he said.

Several Democratic critics have said that is precisely what the administration is risking with an open-ended commitment of American forces, at a time that a year-old Iraqi government gropes for a compromise that can satisfy Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish political interests.

Timetables and withdrawal
Bush spoke as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the U.S. government has a right to revise its policies as it sees fit. At the same time, he said that talk of timetables for troop withdrawals "is not coming from the inner circles in the U.S. government," but the product of the American election campaign. "We are not much concerned about that," he said.


"I affirm that this government represents the will of the people and no one has the right to impose a timetable on it," al-Maliki told reporters.

At his news conference, Bush sought a middle ground in terms of pressing the Iraqis to accept more of the responsibility for their own fate and said that "a fixed timetable for withdrawal in my judgment means defeat."

"We are making it clear that America's patience is not unlimited," Bush added. "We will not put more pressure on the Iraqi government than it can bear."

Middle East and Iraq
Bush spoke as polls showed the public has become strongly opposed to the war, and increasing numbers of Republican candidates have signaled impatience with the president's policies.

As he has repeatedly, Bush predicted that Republicans would hold control of the House and Senate in two weeks' time, despite widespread predictions to the contrary. He jabbed at Democrats who he said are "dancing in the end zone" or measuring the drapes for new offices.

"The American people will decide," who wins, he said.The president said the world expects Iran and Syria to help quell sectarian violence in Iraq, but he rejected the idea of working directly with Iran while Tehran pursues a nuclear program in defiance of the United Nations.

"If they would verifiably stop their enrichment, the United States would be at the table with them," Bush said.

Concern about Iraq violence
In his opening moments at the podium in the East Room of the White House, Bush departed starkly from a practice of not talking about specific deaths in Iraq.

"There has been heavy fighting, many enemy fighters have been killed or captured and we've suffered casualties of our own," he said. "This month we've lost 93 American service members in Iraq, the most since October of 2005. During roughly the same period, more than 300 Iraqi security personnel have given their lives in battle. Iraqi civilians have suffered unspeakable violence at the hands of the terrorists, insurgents, illegal militias, armed groups and criminals."

He called these events "a serious concern to me, and a serious concern to the American people."



For all his fervor about the importance of the military mission in Iraq, Bush sidestepped when asked whether the Nov. 7 elections should be viewed as a referendum on the war.

"The election is a referendum on which party has a plan to make the economy grow, and which party has a plan to make the American people safe," he said.

"If we succeed in Iraq, the country (the United States) is more secure. If we don't succeed in Iraq, the country is less secure."

Democrats, Iraq, responsibility and more
As he has numerous times while campaigning for Republican candidates, Bush said of the Democrats, "I do not question their patriotism. I question whether or not they understand how dangerous the world is."

Bush doggedly defended the job that defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has done. "I'm satisfied at how he's done all his jobs. He's a smart, tough, capable administrator," the president said.

Then, the commander in chief took full responsibility for the war.

"You asked me about accountability. It rests right here," he said, pointing at his chest for emphasis, "That's what the 2004 campaign was all about."

The session was dominated by foreign policy, from Iraq to Iran, Syria and a question about North Korea, the secretive communist regime which recently said it had set off a nuclear test.

"The leader of North Korea likes to threaten. In my judgment what he's doing is testing the will of the five countries that are working together to convince him there's a better way forward for his people."

The president has refused to authorize one-on-one negotiations with North Korea. Instead, talks occur through a multinational group that includes Russia, China, South Korea and Japan as well as the United States.

Bush brushed off a North Korean warning for South Korea to stay clear of sanctions against Pyongyang for a nuclear test, declaring "the coalition remains firm."

"This is not the first time that he's issued threats," he said of President Kim Jong Il, "and our goal is to continue to remind our partners that when we work together, we're more likely to be able to achieve the objective, which is to solve this problem diplomatically."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

LONDON, 25 October 2006 (Associated Press)
Industry experts believe the bitter rivalry among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds will make it difficult to pass a law on distributing Iraq's oil wealth — one of the key steps in a timeline for restoring production to prewar levels and shoring up the shaky Baghdad government.

But even if Iraq's politicians do better than expected, two other problems the industry is facing have shown no sign of abating: widespread attacks on pipelines and oil smuggling.

SIGIR, the U.S. agency that oversees Iraq's reconstruction, recently announced that oil production in Iraq, which had hovered around 2 million barrels per day during 2005 and most of the first half of 2006, briefly reached the prewar level of 2.5 million barrels per day in mid-June. It also said oil exports had increased, averaging 1.6 million bpd during that quarter.

But oil analysts have dismissed those numbers as a blip, not a benchmark.

"Figures for one week, or even one month don't mean much. Oil markets look at the numbers over an average of six months. That is what we call sustained figures," said Issam al-Chalabi, a former Iraqi oil minister now working as an oil consultant in Jordan.

"Nothing has changed. Nothing has improved," he said in an interview, adding that if it had, major international oil companies wouldn't still be sitting on the sidelines, waiting for Iraq to clarify its laws and reduce its widespread violence.

On Tuesday, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador in Iraq, said its leaders had agreed to the timeline that would require Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to set dates by the end of the year for completing six key tasks.

Five of the markers are clearly designed to mollify Sunni Arabs, the Muslim sect that makes up the bulk of the insurgency and is responsible for most American deaths in Iraq.

In addition to a law that would guarantee the sharing of Iraq's oil wealth, the timeline requires amending the constitution, turning an anti-Baathist organization into a reconciliation body, disbanding Shiite militias, setting a date for provincial elections, and "increasing the credibility and capability of Iraqi forces."

A new oil law could help Iraq's oil sector and its crumbling infrastructure by resolving how Iraq's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish regions would share oil revenues and resources, and broker deals with international oil companies regarding desperately needed exploration and development.

Most of Iraq's known oil wealth is exported from the south, where majority Shiites predominate and where U.S. and Iraqi ground forces and ships work around the clock to protect Iraq's main offshore oil terminal near Basra from insurgent attacks.

In the other main area — the Kurdish north — the regional government already has signed agreements with small international oil companies, in defiance of the central government. Minority Sunnis, who mostly live in barren, war-torn central and western Iraq, worry they will be left with little or no control over the country's oil industry.

"The Kurds have submitted a draft Petroleum Act to be adopted that gives them the right to control oil, regardless of the government in Baghdad. The Oil Ministry has submitted another completely different draft that gives the authority to the ministry, not regions. It's the main issue of the conflict: oil and Kurds," said al-Chalabi.

Mustafa Alani, a senior adviser at the Gulf Research Center in the United Arab Emirates, also said he doubted that Iraq's deeply divided parliament will be able to pass legislation that resolves the regional dispute over Iraq's oil wealth.

But he said the U.S. timetable has left many Iraqis believing that Washington is now planning for a gradual withdrawal of its forces, meaning that fighting among Iraqis — not a compromise in parliament — could determine the fate of the oil industry.

"If the U.S. stepped up its forces and stayed, there would be more chance of success," Alani said. "But the U.S. must remember: this is a major oil producing region, not a Somalia. The impact of a cut-and-run strategy wouldn't stop at Iraq's borders."

Even if Iraq's Shiite-led government resolves the dispute, there is little sign of improvement in two other challenges to the oil industry: widespread attacks and corruption.

Recent SIGIR and Iraqi government reports have described corruption in Iraq such as oil smuggling as "pervasive" and "a virtual pandemic" — one that threatens not only Iraq's capacity to fund new capital investment, but also to sustain and increase oil production.

The reports also said widespread insurgent attacks and vandalism on crude oil and product pipelines — which stretch 7,000 kilometers (4,340 miles) across Iraq — and the oil industry's dilapidated infrastructure have hindered domestic refining, forcing Iraq to import significant amounts of liquefied petroleum gas, gasoline, kerosene and diesel.

Smuggling includes sending imported oil products or stolen local crude to neighboring countries such as Turkey, Iran, Syria and Jordan, where they often sell for more than in Iraq.

A May 2006 survey found that 20 percent of Iraqis in 10 major cities have paid bribes to purchase gasoline on the black market.

The U.S. State Department estimated that about 10 percent of refined fuels are sold on the black market and about 30 percent of imported fuels are smuggled out of Iraq.

A recent report by the inspector general of Iraq's Oil Ministry said such smuggling is mainly done in boats at Iraq's southern ports and trucks at the western and northern borders, thanks to a lack of coast guards and border patrols, the corruption of customs officials and police, and the existence of illegal ports and anchorage areas operated by smugglers.

In some areas, it said, an Iraqi truck driver who pays US$500 in bribes to police patrols to take oil to a smuggling outlet still makes a profit of US$8,400.

LONDON Industry experts believe the bitter rivalry among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds will make it difficult to pass a law on distributing Iraq's oil wealth — one of the key steps in a timeline for restoring production to prewar levels and shoring up the shaky Baghdad government.

But even if Iraq's politicians do better than expected, two other problems the industry is facing have shown no sign of abating: widespread attacks on pipelines and oil smuggling.

SIGIR, the U.S. agency that oversees Iraq's reconstruction, recently announced that oil production in Iraq, which had hovered around 2 million barrels per day during 2005 and most of the first half of 2006, briefly reached the prewar level of 2.5 million barrels per day in mid-June. It also said oil exports had increased, averaging 1.6 million bpd during that quarter.

But oil analysts have dismissed those numbers as a blip, not a benchmark.

"Figures for one week, or even one month don't mean much. Oil markets look at the numbers over an average of six months. That is what we call sustained figures," said Issam al-Chalabi, a former Iraqi oil minister now working as an oil consultant in Jordan.

"Nothing has changed. Nothing has improved," he said in an interview, adding that if it had, major international oil companies wouldn't still be sitting on the sidelines, waiting for Iraq to clarify its laws and reduce its widespread violence.

On Tuesday, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador in Iraq, said its leaders had agreed to the timeline that would require Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to set dates by the end of the year for completing six key tasks.

Five of the markers are clearly designed to mollify Sunni Arabs, the Muslim sect that makes up the bulk of the insurgency and is responsible for most American deaths in Iraq.

In addition to a law that would guarantee the sharing of Iraq's oil wealth, the timeline requires amending the constitution, turning an anti-Baathist organization into a reconciliation body, disbanding Shiite militias, setting a date for provincial elections, and "increasing the credibility and capability of Iraqi forces."

A new oil law could help Iraq's oil sector and its crumbling infrastructure by resolving how Iraq's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish regions would share oil revenues and resources, and broker deals with international oil companies regarding desperately needed exploration and development.

Most of Iraq's known oil wealth is exported from the south, where majority Shiites predominate and where U.S. and Iraqi ground forces and ships work around the clock to protect Iraq's main offshore oil terminal near Basra from insurgent attacks.

In the other main area — the Kurdish north — the regional government already has signed agreements with small international oil companies, in defiance of the central government. Minority Sunnis, who mostly live in barren, war-torn central and western Iraq, worry they will be left with little or no control over the country's oil industry.

"The Kurds have submitted a draft Petroleum Act to be adopted that gives them the right to control oil, regardless of the government in Baghdad. The Oil Ministry has submitted another completely different draft that gives the authority to the ministry, not regions. It's the main issue of the conflict: oil and Kurds," said al-Chalabi.

Mustafa Alani, a senior adviser at the Gulf Research Center in the United Arab Emirates, also said he doubted that Iraq's deeply divided parliament will be able to pass legislation that resolves the regional dispute over Iraq's oil wealth.

But he said the U.S. timetable has left many Iraqis believing that Washington is now planning for a gradual withdrawal of its forces, meaning that fighting among Iraqis — not a compromise in parliament — could determine the fate of the oil industry.

"If the U.S. stepped up its forces and stayed, there would be more chance of success," Alani said. "But the U.S. must remember: this is a major oil producing region, not a Somalia. The impact of a cut-and-run strategy wouldn't stop at Iraq's borders."

Even if Iraq's Shiite-led government resolves the dispute, there is little sign of improvement in two other challenges to the oil industry: widespread attacks and corruption.

Recent SIGIR and Iraqi government reports have described corruption in Iraq such as oil smuggling as "pervasive" and "a virtual pandemic" — one that threatens not only Iraq's capacity to fund new capital investment, but also to sustain and increase oil production.

The reports also said widespread insurgent attacks and vandalism on crude oil and product pipelines — which stretch 7,000 kilometers (4,340 miles) across Iraq — and the oil industry's dilapidated infrastructure have hindered domestic refining, forcing Iraq to import significant amounts of liquefied petroleum gas, gasoline, kerosene and diesel.

Smuggling includes sending imported oil products or stolen local crude to neighboring countries such as Turkey, Iran, Syria and Jordan, where they often sell for more than in Iraq.

A May 2006 survey found that 20 percent of Iraqis in 10 major cities have paid bribes to purchase gasoline on the black market.

The U.S. State Department estimated that about 10 percent of refined fuels are sold on the black market and about 30 percent of imported fuels are smuggled out of Iraq.

A recent report by the inspector general of Iraq's Oil Ministry said such smuggling is mainly done in boats at Iraq's southern ports and trucks at the western and northern borders, thanks to a lack of coast guards and border patrols, the corruption of customs officials and police, and the existence of illegal ports and anchorage areas operated by smugglers.

In some areas, it said, an Iraqi truck driver who pays US$500 in bribes to police patrols to take oil to a smuggling outlet still makes a profit of US$8,400.

U.S. demand for new oil law in Iraq is only one challenge industry faces | Iraq Updates

Voices of Iraq : Talabani - Barzani - Khalilzad (Urgent)
Wednesday, October 25, 2006-12:40 PM BT
Tripartite meeting between Talabani and Barzani and Khalilzad Balslimaneh
اArbil - (Voices of Iraq)
The tripartite meeting this afternoon Wednesday between Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani, the American ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, at the resort of Dukan in Sulaymaniyah.
.The meeting of the American ambassador with Talabani and Barzani is the first of Khalilzad with Iraqi officials after his return from the United States and his meeting with President George Bush.
The space of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Kurdistan "that Khalilzad, the American ambassador in Iraq began this morning meeting with the President of the Republic of Iraq, Mr. Jalal Talabani and Mr. Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan region in the head of Dukan."
It added that the meeting would discuss the space of the deteriorating situation in Iraq. although Khalilzad will Talabani and Barzani on the content of the topics discussed with the American President George W. Bush.

Cheers!
DayDream

Originally Posted by pipshurricane

LONDON, 25 October 2006 (Associated Press)
Industry experts believe the bitter rivalry among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds will make it difficult to pass a law on distributing Iraq's oil wealth — one of the key steps in a timeline for restoring production to prewar levels and shoring up the shaky Baghdad government.

But even if Iraq's politicians do better than expected, two other problems the industry is facing have shown no sign of abating: widespread attacks on pipelines and oil smuggling.

SIGIR, the U.S. agency that oversees Iraq's reconstruction, recently announced that oil production in Iraq, which had hovered around 2 million barrels per day during 2005 and most of the first half of 2006, briefly reached the prewar level of 2.5 million barrels per day in mid-June. It also said oil exports had increased, averaging 1.6 million bpd during that quarter.

But oil analysts have dismissed those numbers as a blip, not a benchmark.

"Figures for one week, or even one month don't mean much. Oil markets look at the numbers over an average of six months. That is what we call sustained figures," said Issam al-Chalabi, a former Iraqi oil minister now working as an oil consultant in Jordan.

"Nothing has changed. Nothing has improved," he said in an interview, adding that if it had, major international oil companies wouldn't still be sitting on the sidelines, waiting for Iraq to clarify its laws and reduce its widespread violence.

On Tuesday, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador in Iraq, said its leaders had agreed to the timeline that would require Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to set dates by the end of the year for completing six key tasks.

Five of the markers are clearly designed to mollify Sunni Arabs, the Muslim sect that makes up the bulk of the insurgency and is responsible for most American deaths in Iraq.

In addition to a law that would guarantee the sharing of Iraq's oil wealth, the timeline requires amending the constitution, turning an anti-Baathist organization into a reconciliation body, disbanding Shiite militias, setting a date for provincial elections, and "increasing the credibility and capability of Iraqi forces."

A new oil law could help Iraq's oil sector and its crumbling infrastructure by resolving how Iraq's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish regions would share oil revenues and resources, and broker deals with international oil companies regarding desperately needed exploration and development.

Most of Iraq's known oil wealth is exported from the south, where majority Shiites predominate and where U.S. and Iraqi ground forces and ships work around the clock to protect Iraq's main offshore oil terminal near Basra from insurgent attacks.

In the other main area — the Kurdish north — the regional government already has signed agreements with small international oil companies, in defiance of the central government. Minority Sunnis, who mostly live in barren, war-torn central and western Iraq, worry they will be left with little or no control over the country's oil industry.

"The Kurds have submitted a draft Petroleum Act to be adopted that gives them the right to control oil, regardless of the government in Baghdad. The Oil Ministry has submitted another completely different draft that gives the authority to the ministry, not regions. It's the main issue of the conflict: oil and Kurds," said al-Chalabi.

Mustafa Alani, a senior adviser at the Gulf Research Center in the United Arab Emirates, also said he doubted that Iraq's deeply divided parliament will be able to pass legislation that resolves the regional dispute over Iraq's oil wealth.

But he said the U.S. timetable has left many Iraqis believing that Washington is now planning for a gradual withdrawal of its forces, meaning that fighting among Iraqis — not a compromise in parliament — could determine the fate of the oil industry.

"If the U.S. stepped up its forces and stayed, there would be more chance of success," Alani said. "But the U.S. must remember: this is a major oil producing region, not a Somalia. The impact of a cut-and-run strategy wouldn't stop at Iraq's borders."

Even if Iraq's Shiite-led government resolves the dispute, there is little sign of improvement in two other challenges to the oil industry: widespread attacks and corruption.

Recent SIGIR and Iraqi government reports have described corruption in Iraq such as oil smuggling as "pervasive" and "a virtual pandemic" — one that threatens not only Iraq's capacity to fund new capital investment, but also to sustain and increase oil production.

The reports also said widespread insurgent attacks and vandalism on crude oil and product pipelines — which stretch 7,000 kilometers (4,340 miles) across Iraq — and the oil industry's dilapidated infrastructure have hindered domestic refining, forcing Iraq to import significant amounts of liquefied petroleum gas, gasoline, kerosene and diesel.

Smuggling includes sending imported oil products or stolen local crude to neighboring countries such as Turkey, Iran, Syria and Jordan, where they often sell for more than in Iraq.

A May 2006 survey found that 20 percent of Iraqis in 10 major cities have paid bribes to purchase gasoline on the black market.

The U.S. State Department estimated that about 10 percent of refined fuels are sold on the black market and about 30 percent of imported fuels are smuggled out of Iraq.

A recent report by the inspector general of Iraq's Oil Ministry said such smuggling is mainly done in boats at Iraq's southern ports and trucks at the western and northern borders, thanks to a lack of coast guards and border patrols, the corruption of customs officials and police, and the existence of illegal ports and anchorage areas operated by smugglers.

In some areas, it said, an Iraqi truck driver who pays US$500 in bribes to police patrols to take oil to a smuggling outlet still makes a profit of US$8,400.

LONDON Industry experts believe the bitter rivalry among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds will make it difficult to pass a law on distributing Iraq's oil wealth — one of the key steps in a timeline for restoring production to prewar levels and shoring up the shaky Baghdad government.

But even if Iraq's politicians do better than expected, two other problems the industry is facing have shown no sign of abating: widespread attacks on pipelines and oil smuggling.

SIGIR, the U.S. agency that oversees Iraq's reconstruction, recently announced that oil production in Iraq, which had hovered around 2 million barrels per day during 2005 and most of the first half of 2006, briefly reached the prewar level of 2.5 million barrels per day in mid-June. It also said oil exports had increased, averaging 1.6 million bpd during that quarter.

But oil analysts have dismissed those numbers as a blip, not a benchmark.

"Figures for one week, or even one month don't mean much. Oil markets look at the numbers over an average of six months. That is what we call sustained figures," said Issam al-Chalabi, a former Iraqi oil minister now working as an oil consultant in Jordan.

"Nothing has changed. Nothing has improved," he said in an interview, adding that if it had, major international oil companies wouldn't still be sitting on the sidelines, waiting for Iraq to clarify its laws and reduce its widespread violence.

On Tuesday, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador in Iraq, said its leaders had agreed to the timeline that would require Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to set dates by the end of the year for completing six key tasks.

Five of the markers are clearly designed to mollify Sunni Arabs, the Muslim sect that makes up the bulk of the insurgency and is responsible for most American deaths in Iraq.

In addition to a law that would guarantee the sharing of Iraq's oil wealth, the timeline requires amending the constitution, turning an anti-Baathist organization into a reconciliation body, disbanding Shiite militias, setting a date for provincial elections, and "increasing the credibility and capability of Iraqi forces."

A new oil law could help Iraq's oil sector and its crumbling infrastructure by resolving how Iraq's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish regions would share oil revenues and resources, and broker deals with international oil companies regarding desperately needed exploration and development.

Most of Iraq's known oil wealth is exported from the south, where majority Shiites predominate and where U.S. and Iraqi ground forces and ships work around the clock to protect Iraq's main offshore oil terminal near Basra from insurgent attacks.

In the other main area — the Kurdish north — the regional government already has signed agreements with small international oil companies, in defiance of the central government. Minority Sunnis, who mostly live in barren, war-torn central and western Iraq, worry they will be left with little or no control over the country's oil industry.

"The Kurds have submitted a draft Petroleum Act to be adopted that gives them the right to control oil, regardless of the government in Baghdad. The Oil Ministry has submitted another completely different draft that gives the authority to the ministry, not regions. It's the main issue of the conflict: oil and Kurds," said al-Chalabi.

Mustafa Alani, a senior adviser at the Gulf Research Center in the United Arab Emirates, also said he doubted that Iraq's deeply divided parliament will be able to pass legislation that resolves the regional dispute over Iraq's oil wealth.

But he said the U.S. timetable has left many Iraqis believing that Washington is now planning for a gradual withdrawal of its forces, meaning that fighting among Iraqis — not a compromise in parliament — could determine the fate of the oil industry.

"If the U.S. stepped up its forces and stayed, there would be more chance of success," Alani said. "But the U.S. must remember: this is a major oil producing region, not a Somalia. The impact of a cut-and-run strategy wouldn't stop at Iraq's borders."

Even if Iraq's Shiite-led government resolves the dispute, there is little sign of improvement in two other challenges to the oil industry: widespread attacks and corruption.

Recent SIGIR and Iraqi government reports have described corruption in Iraq such as oil smuggling as "pervasive" and "a virtual pandemic" — one that threatens not only Iraq's capacity to fund new capital investment, but also to sustain and increase oil production.

The reports also said widespread insurgent attacks and vandalism on crude oil and product pipelines — which stretch 7,000 kilometers (4,340 miles) across Iraq — and the oil industry's dilapidated infrastructure have hindered domestic refining, forcing Iraq to import significant amounts of liquefied petroleum gas, gasoline, kerosene and diesel.

Smuggling includes sending imported oil products or stolen local crude to neighboring countries such as Turkey, Iran, Syria and Jordan, where they often sell for more than in Iraq.

A May 2006 survey found that 20 percent of Iraqis in 10 major cities have paid bribes to purchase gasoline on the black market.

The U.S. State Department estimated that about 10 percent of refined fuels are sold on the black market and about 30 percent of imported fuels are smuggled out of Iraq.

A recent report by the inspector general of Iraq's Oil Ministry said such smuggling is mainly done in boats at Iraq's southern ports and trucks at the western and northern borders, thanks to a lack of coast guards and border patrols, the corruption of customs officials and police, and the existence of illegal ports and anchorage areas operated by smugglers.

In some areas, it said, an Iraqi truck driver who pays US$500 in bribes to police patrols to take oil to a smuggling outlet still makes a profit of US$8,400.

U.S. demand for new oil law in Iraq is only one challenge industry faces | Iraq Updates

With news like this as the rule rather than the exeption it seems increasingly unrealistic to expect a reval anytime soon. Its obvious these folks wouldn't know what to do with the money if they had it!

Originally Posted by Precocious

With news like this as the rule rather than the exeption it seems increasingly unrealistic to expect a reval anytime soon. Its obvious these folks wouldn't know what to do with the money if they had it!

VANQUISH...is that you????

Originally Posted by doublescorpio

VANQUISH...is that you????

Actually, they'd have more to bribe/connive with, smuggle, embezzle and launder if they'd just reval it already! The only thing worse than a criminal is a DUMB criminal. Maybe we should send Skilling over there to give 'em a few lessons.

Originally Posted by Adster

Loada waffle. Nothing major or new. Need more time out there, Iraqi government only been in 5 months, much to do. IF we pull out now insurgents will take over, make it their base, use the oil profits to fund militia attacks on the US etc.....

Summary: Gimme your vote 7 November, we will turn Iraq around but I need more time, trust me etc.........

actually, i noticed a couple smirks on his face when mentioning whats yet to come so to speak. i dont know why everyone here got a negative vibe from it, i was actually thinking he was doin a good cheshire cat impression myself. i think the cat is damn near out of the bag.