London Observer "Outs" Israeli Plans to Steal Iraqi Oil
Update, 06 May 2003
"Plans to build a pipeline to siphon oil from newly conquered Iraq to Israel are being discussed between Washington, Tel Aviv and potential future government figures in Baghdad. The plan envisages the reconstruction of an old pipeline, inactive since the end of the British mandate in Palestine in 1948, when the flow from Iraq's northern oilfields to Palestine was re-directed to Syria.
"Now, its resurrection would transform economic power in the region, bringing revenue to the new US-dominated Iraq, cutting out Syria and solving Israel's energy crisis at a stroke. It would also create an end less and easily accessible source of cheap Iraqi oil for the US guaranteed by reliable allies other than Saudi Arabia - a keystone of US foreign policy for decades and especially since 11 September 2001.
"Until 1948, the pipeline ran from the Kurdish-controlled city of Mosul to the Israeli port of Haifa, on its northern Mediterranean coast. The revival of the pipeline was first discussed openly by the Israeli Minister for National Infrastructures, Joseph Paritzky, according to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz .
"The paper quotes Paritzky as saying that the pipeline would cut Israel's energy bill drastically - probably by more than 25 per cent - since the country is currently largely dependent on expensive imports from Russia. US intelligence sources confirmed to The Observer that the project has been discussed. One former senior CIA official said: 'It has long been a dream of a powerful section of the people now driving this administration [of President George W. Bush] and the war in Iraq to safeguard Israel's energy supply as well as that of the United States.
'The Haifa pipeline was something that existed, was resurrected as a dream and is now a viable project - albeit with a lot of building to do.' The editor-in-chief of the Middle East Economic Review , Walid Khadduri, says in the current issue of Jane's Foreign Report that 'there's not a metre of it left, at least in Arab territory'.
"To resurrect the pipeline would need the backing of whatever government the US is to put in place in Iraq, and has been discussed - according to Western diplomatic sources - with the US-sponsored Iraqi National Congress and its leader Ahmed Chalabi, the former banker favoured by the Pentagon for a powerful role in the war's aftermath.
"Sources at the State Department said that concluding a peace treaty with Israel is to be 'top of the agenda' for a new Iraqi government, and Chalabi is known to have discussed Iraq's recognition of the state of Israel. The pipeline would also require permission from Jordan. Paritzky's Ministry is believed to have approached officials in Amman on 9 April this year. Sources told Ha'aretz that the talks left Israel 'optimistic'.
"James Akins, a former US ambassador to the region and one of America's leading Arabists, said: 'There would be a fee for transit rights through Jordan, just as there would be fees for Israel from those using what would be the Haifa terminal. 'After all, this is a new world order now. This is what things look like particularly if we wipe out Syria. It just goes to show that it is all about oil, for the United States and its ally.'
"Akins was ambassador to Saudi Arabia before he was fired after a series of conflicts with then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, father of the vision to pipe oil west from Iraq. In 1975, Kissinger signed what forms the basis for the Haifa project: a Memorandum of Understanding whereby the US would guarantee Israel's oil reserves and energy supply in times of crisis.
"Kissinger was also master of the American plan in the mid-Eighties - when Saddam Hussein was a key US ally - to run an oil pipeline from Iraq to Aqaba in Jordan, opposite the Israeli port of Eilat. The plan was promoted by the now Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and the pipeline was to be built by the Bechtel company, which the Bush administration last week awarded a multi-billion dollar contract for the reconstruction of Iraq.
"The memorandum has been quietly renewed every five years, with special legislation attached whereby the US stocks a strategic oil reserve for Israel even if it entailed domestic shortages - at a cost of $3 billion (£1.9bn) in 2002 to US taxpayers.(another hidden 3 billion annually for Israel) This bill would be slashed by a new pipeline, which would have the added advantage of giving the US reliable access to Gulf oil other than from Saudi Arabia." For the Observer newspaper click Here.
Though this Observer report is a reasonable summary of current events in Iraq, and the advanced state of planning for Operation Shekhinah, it has been somewhat misled by the apparent absence of the Haifa Pipeline in Jane's Foreign Report, which apparently states, 'there's not a metre of it left, at least in Arab territory'.
When it comes to pipelines of critical strategic value to Israel, map makers and newspaper editors alike seem to to develop a rare form of collective myopia. The Haifa pipeline still runs through Iraq and Jordan, is clearly visible from any airliner, and remains fully operational with pumping stations in place and well maintained.
So what about Israel's second route for stealing Iraqi crude oil, the old "Tapline" running acroos the extreme northern edge of Saudi Arabia? What chance that another branch of the myopic media might try to tell you 'there's not a metre of it left, at least in Arab territory'?
Rest assured that if they do, they will be lying. The Trans Arabian Pipeline, just like the Haifa Pipeline, is currently not pumping, but it is full of oil, with pumping stations properly maintained. There is a slight glitch, however. According to reliable inside sources, the western oil multinationals have refused to connect the pipelines or transfer Iraqi oil, because there is no proper "sovereign title" to the product, and they are not prepared to start World War III with Russia over the matter.
Update 20 October 2003
First Tacit American Admission of Defeat in Iraq
In the months following America’s illegal invasion of Iraq, it has become increasingly obvious that the northern pipeline from Mosul, planned to be reconnected to an export terminal in Haifa, is an impossible Zionist dream. Whenever American troops approach the northern half of this particular pipeline [see map at top of page], they are shot at and often killed by Saddam Hussein’s Sunni counter-insurgency teams. Whenever American troops approach the southern half of the same pipeline, they are shot at and often killed by Muqtada Al-Sadr’s Shiite counter-insurgency teams.
While these attacks are actually taking place, additional Sunni and Shiite counter-insurgency teams repeatedly blow up large sections of the main and branch oil pipelines, making the movement of crude oil and refined product impossible. Thousands of kilometers of oil pipeline are exposed above ground level, which, as I accurately forecast before the invasion started, cannot be defended by American troops.
All oil pipelines are pressurized, meaning that any Iraqi with a simple RPG [Rocket Propelled Grenade] can shut down any part of any pipeline whenever he wants, with a single shot. The last time I bothered to check, Iraq still had more than 600,000 RPG rounds available, meaning that American troops can go on getting killed and maimed for the next ten years, without any significant oil flow from Iraq to Israel, or from Iraq to America.
Two weeks ago, in what may be the first tacit admission of defeat in northern and central Iraq, America ordered its principal puppet in Baghdad, Ahmed Chalabi, to approach Saudi Arabia with a plan to pump Iraqi crude south-west through pipeline IPSA-1, for “onward transmission to the Red Sea.”
In fact, IPSA-1 was Israel’s original choice for Operation Shekhinah in March 2001, when the plan was for IPSC-2 and IPSC-1 to intersect the Trans Arabian Pipeline [Tapline], for the onward transmission of stolen Iraqi oil to the port of Haifa in Israel. Understandably perhaps, the “Red Sea” was not mentioned anywhere in the Shekhinah planning documents.
Though Chalabi’s approach came far too late in the day, it was without doubt the only plan that had even a remote chance of success, which is why the Israelis selected it months before their backers in Lower Manhattan were suddenly razed to the ground on 11 September 2001.
As a quick glance at the maps on this page show very well, IPSC-2 and IPSC-1 start in the huge southern Rumaila Field, then closely hug the Kuwaiti border before crossing the Neutral Zone into Saudi Arabia. When American forces are finally compelled to leave northern and central Iraq and retreat to the south, it is not difficult to see the logic of America’s latest desperate tactical plan.
Though 150,000 American troops have absolutely no chance of defeating and holding greater Iraq, there is no reason to believe they could not hold defensive positions in the relatively small portion of Iraq to the south of an east-west line drawn across the top of the Rumaila Field at Basra. Theoretically, this would then give America absolute control of the massive Rumaila Field, of the oil export terminals near Basra, and finally control of land pipelines running south-west, which are well out of reach of Iraqi Sunni & Shiite counter-insurgency teams.
Unfortunately for America, the Saudi Government knows only too well who pulls George Bush’s puppet strings, and it also knows about Operation Shekhinah. Al Jazeera reported on 20 October 2003 [link below] that Chalabi’s approach was smoothly rebuffed by the Saudis, with an anonymous Aramco official saying the Iraqis "don't know what they are talking about. The pipeline is not in a stage to be utilized."
The Saudis know as well as I do that there is nothing wrong with either IPSC-1 or IPSC-2, both of which remain full of oil [to exclude oxygen and avoid corrosion], and could be put back into operation in less than three months, as could the Tapline across to Jordan and then on to Israel. Unfortunately for Chalabi and his bunch of cutthroats in Baghdad, the Saudis kicked the Americans out of the Kingdom only last year, and very sensibly refuse to let them back in.
Shipping substantial quantities of crude oil out of Iraq via the Persian Gulf remains unthinkable, with significant dangers on the al Faw peninsula, and also from Iran just a few kilometers away. With the northern and western pipelines to Turkey and Israel now in tatters, IPSC-1 is the sole remaining route along which Israel and America can steal Iraqi crude oil, but they have left it too late. |
