WASHINGTON, Jan 24: The United States is drawing up plans to move swiftly to protect Iraq’s oil fields in the event of a war, fearing that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could destroy them as he did in Kuwait 12 years ago, a senior military official said on Friday.
“There are a number of indications through reliable intelligence sources that those activities have been planned and that in some cases they may have begun,” said the official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity.
The official, who is with the US Central Command, said the military was drawing up plans to protect the oil fields while an interagency group, which includes oil industry experts, was examining ways to mitigate any damage.
“It is fair to say the land component commander and his staff have crafted strategies that will allow us to secure and protect those fields as rapidly as possible,” the official said.
The potential for damage to Iraq’s post-war economy and the region’s ecology is far greater than in Kuwait, where Iraqi forces set fire to hundreds of oil wells as they retreated in 1991, he said.
Iraq has roughly 1,000 wells in the south and another 500 in the north, which produce 20 to 30 billion dollars a year in revenues, he said. Destruction of Iraq’s oil infrastructure would cost another 30 to 50 billion dollars to repair, according to US estimates.
Losses of that magnitude would have significant economic effects on countries in the region as well as on the Iraqi people, he said.
Moreover, the release of oil and smoke from fires would likely have long-term health effects as well as cause lasting ecological damage, the official said, noting that environmental clean-up from the Kuwait oil fires was still continuing.
The briefing, which was arranged by the Pentagon, was the latest in a US effort to prepare the public for military action against Iraq.
Calling it a “weapon of terror”, the official said destruction of the oil fields would give Saddam Hussein little military advantage.
“We believe that he would be willing to destroy those fields,” he said. “Destroying those fields will not cause the coalition military forces any great difficulty in achieving their military objectives. It will have a lasting effect on the people in his nation.”
“We feel its important to preserve those fields so there is a potential for a very rapid development of the economy in Iraq if the conflict goes on,” he said.
Protecting the oil fields, which are spread out over a large area and can be easily wired with explosives, is a challenging task for the military, not one it was traditionally trained for, the official said.
“However, because of the importance of these oil fields to the future of the Iraqi people, we focused a great deal of effort in the planning aspect on how we could do that,” he said.
He said mix of special forces, conventional forces, and highly mobile forces could be used to secure the oil fields.
World Social Forum: Five hundred legislators from around the globe attending the World Social Forum here adopted a resolution on Friday stressing the “urgency” of averting war in Iraq and ending occupation of the Palestinian territories.
The document encourages lawmakers from the 15 member nations of the UN Security Council to urge their governments to oppose the war, challenge the notion of preventive warfare and exercise their right to a veto.
Released at the close of the parliamentary gathering, the statement said legislators worldwide would mobilize against war this year, “both on a legislative level and in concert with social movements,” because “this is a matter of utmost urgency.”
—AFP/Reuters