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| Protection For Oilfields |
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| Halima |
| 01/24/03 at 03:29:26 |
| PROTECTION FOR OILFIELDS Source: Sky News There are claims the US military has drawn up plans to protect Iraq's oilfields in the event of war. The aim is to prevent a repeat of 1991 when Saddam Hussein set Kuwait's oil wells on fire. A leaked document said the US wants to make the protection of Iraq's oilfields "issue number one" in the event of an invasion. The leak comes after Secretary of State Colin Powell promised a US military occupation of Iraq would hold the oilfields "in trust" for the Iraqi people. Many people opposed to a war in Iraq say it is about control of oil. This is because Iraq has the world's second biggest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia. Oilfields run from north to south There are huge fields from Mosul in the north, down to Baghdad and Basra in the South as well as in western Iraq. Under current rules Iraq exports around 1.5million barrels of oil a day, but analysts reckon this could easily be increased to around 6 million barrels.. If Iraq were to set the fields alight, as happened in the last Gulf war, then a major supply of the world's oil would be cut off with potentially catastophic effects. Already the worlds largest consumer of oil and dependent on imports, the US reckons it will need an additional 6 million barrels of oil a day by 2020. |
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