By JIM KRANE
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saboteurs launching attacks on Iraq's oil and electricity
infrastructure appear to be employees working in the industry or others acting
on inside information, reconstruction officials said Sunday.
A Western diplomat in Baghdad said the "precise" targeting of especially
vulnerable or valuable portions of the oil and electricity systems - and even a
sewage treatment plant - has increased the damage to critical infrastructure
beyond what would be expected from random attacks.
The diplomat declined to reveal the sections that had been sabotaged.
Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has blamed such attacks for a nationwide
loss of power of more than four hours a day. Iraq's pipelines transport crude
oil for export and also carry it to oil-fired power generators that provide
domestic electricity.
Allawi said saboteurs have attacked vital oil pipelines 130 times in the last
seven months, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage and lost
revenues, hindering Iraq's efforts to rebuild and adding to the hardships of
average Iraqis.
The Western diplomat said insurgents were suspected of using blackmail and
threats to coerce Iraqi workers to launch attacks or to provide information on
vulnerable locations in the country's oil pipelines and electric power lines.
Funding and information for the sabotage also may be flowing into Iraq from
other countries, the diplomat said.
Oil Minister Thamer al-Ghadban told Dow Jones Newswires on Sunday that his
ministry would extend for "a few months" a contract with South African security
contractor Erinys International that was set to expire in less than a month.
Al-Ghadban said he would also expand the 14,000-member Iraqi force created to
protect the infrastructure.
Steve Wright, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said sabotage
of key infrastructure appears to have been planned before the U.S.-led invasion
last year by members of Saddam Hussein's government. In some cases, Iraqi oil
wells were wired to be set on fire.
In the months after the invasion, saboteurs - suspected of being insiders - set
fire to a computerized control room for a liquid propane gas plant as well as
the plant's warehouse, damaging millions of dollars in equipment, he said.
Elsewhere, a water treatment plant used in Iraq's oil industry was sabotaged,
Wright said.
Even a repaired sewage treatment plant was sabotaged - probably by insiders,
the Western diplomat said.
Now, Iraqis hired by the Army Corps of Engineers to work in Iraq's oil and
electric infrastructure have to go through background checks overseen by the
new U.S. Embassy, Wright said.
Arab tribal leaders living near pipeline routes are also being hired to protect
the lines, he said.
Attacks in northern Iraq have hamstrung exports from the country's oil pipeline
to Ceyhan, Turkey, with the line opening only intermittently before saboteurs'
bombs sever it again. That northern pipeline, which accounts for only a small
fraction of oil exports, has been closed since it was severed by a blast a
month ago.
Three major attacks also temporarily halted exports from southern Iraq, which
handles 90 percent of Iraq's oil exports.
Guerrilla fighters also have targeted foreign experts the coalition has
contracted to help carry out technical repairs and bring in badly needed spare
parts.
And last month, insurgents ambushed and killed the security chief for Iraq's
Northern Oil Company, Ghazi Talabani. Police officials said five men arrested
in connection with the assassination belonged to Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish
group believed linked to al-Qaida.
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