Iraq's Pipelines Ripe for Sabotage

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/oneworld/20031104/wl_oneworld/4536719751067955606&e=3

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All looks well at the sprawling depot that marks the start of the 300-mile pipeline to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Huge cylindrical oil tanks squat on the landscape, and the four-foot wide pipeline gleams.

But it's strangely silent. Slap the pipeline hard with your palm and you're rewarded with a hollow, resonant thunk. That's evidence that the pipeline which accounted for about 40 percent of Iraq's exports of 2 million barrels a day before the war remains dry.

The reason isn't technical. Like almost everything else in Iraq these days, the problem is security, particularly in light of soaring attacks across the country that have shown growing sophistication and coordination among the insurgents.