Rice pops into Kurdish Iraq to check on Haifa pipeline
Tuesday 18 Dec 07 -- Cuntoleezza Rice made an unannounced visit today to Kirkuk, northern Iraq, to visit with members of a civilian-military construction unit. Bush ordered the construction at the same time he ordered the “surge” in Iraq.
In November 2006, Sunni Arab lawmakers walked out of the provincial council in Baghdad, claiming discrimination by the Kurdish majority. The Arabs ended their boycott last month after Kurdish lawmakers agreed to allot one-third of government jobs in Kurdish Iraq to Arabs, and appoint an Arab as deputy governor of the Kurdish regional area, which is ruled by the Barzani clan.
The Kurds hoped to have their referendum to break away from Iraq by November 17, 2007. Iraq's constitution required the referendum by the end of this year, but the Kurds will delay it until March 2008.
Oil-rich Kirkuk is an especially coveted city for both the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government in Baghdad and the Kurdish government in Irbil.
Kurds refer to Kirkuk as the “Kurdish Jerusalem.” The city is a flashpoint for violence, because Arabs don’t want Bush to break up Iraq.
Last month the U.N. sent a special representative to Iraq --Staffan de Mistura – to oversee the breakup.
Mistrust between Arabs and Kurds runs deep, and even the province's name sparks controversy. Kurds, Turkomen and most Sunni Arabs call the province Kirkuk, the same name as its capital city.
But many Shiite Arabs, who came here by the tens of thousands under Saddam Hussein's "Arabization" program, refer to the province as Tamim, the Arabic word for "to nationalize."
The last time Rice visited the region, last year, she held a press conference on a stage decorated with Kurdish flags instead of the Baghdad standard.
(No the CNN article does not mention the pipeline specifically...but would you expect it to?)
..for, to make a deal with the devilz; is to sell one's soul.
..i'm stealing your logo, thx! ;)
..all they need is chalabi to head the new iraq puppet regime, like chevron karzai.. oh, they already tried that.. and the city-states looks more like a ruined slums!
By the way, Rice wanted to meet with Massoud Barzani, leader of the Barzani clan that rules Kurdish Iraq, but Barzani refused. He’s angry that Turkey made air strikes against civilians in northern Iraq on 16 Dec 07, killing a number of people (two days before Rice came). Barzani says it couldn’t have happened unless Turkey got the green light from Bush. Rice said the air strike were Turkey's decision. Turkey says it attacked PKK emplacements.
Barzani expects Bush to protect the skies over northern Iraq. He’s also angry because on Tuesday when Rice arrived, about 500 Turkish soldiers moved into northern Iraq, occupying the villages of Kaya Retch Binwak, Janarok and Gelly Resh, not far from the Turkish border.
This is the first open break between Bush and the Kurds. Falah Mustafa Bakir, the head of Kurdistan's foreign relations department, called the recent developments a low point in relations between Kurds and the United States.
Jamal Abdullah, a spokesman for Barzani clan, said Kurdish Iraq doesn't consider itself Turkey's target for now, but if the attacks continue, that could change.
The Turks have displaced an increasing number of Kurdish families in northern Iraq in the middle of winter. The homes of some have been destroyed, cattle and sheep have burned, and families are terrified of being targeted.
Source
My interpretation: the Turks think Bush has not offered them enough baksheesh (bribe money), which the Turks demand in return for letting the Kurds break away from Iraq. The Barzani clan will make a fortune from oil, and the Turks want a piece of the action. Hence the Turks are increasing the pressure on Bush. The air strikes were in the same region where Hunt Oil is drilling for oil. Ray Hunt of Texas is a close personal friend of Bush. The Turks are letting Bush know that if they don’t get more bribes, they can make life difficult for the private oil companies that are drilling for oil in northern Iraq.
that's one mighty big war!! er.. oilfield!!
PKK allied with ZOO, Turks switch gov't; want more zoolars.
When I look at that picture I put up, it occured to me that the gray area might be mistaken for an oil field. No, the Kurdish oil fields are the little green areas at upper right. The classified gray area hides the Haifa pipeline, plus the string of U.S. bases near pumping stations that maintain pipeline pressure.
Sorry for any confusion.
This MSNBC video shows Baiji, Iraq, a major way station on the pipeline route to Haifa. During Saddam.s time, Baiji was the source of most non-hydroelectric power in Iraq, especially after Israelis blew up the Osirak reactor in June 1981.
Baiji has massive facilities that fell into disrepair when the USA began its long-term aggression that culminated in the March 2003 invasion.
The video shows how the US military protects the “Kirkuk pipeline” by establishing a 200-yard-wide “exclusion zone” with berms, fences, and razor wire all along the pipeline. This will do little good, since oil pipelines are under high pressure, and can easily be attacked with an ordinary RPG. (Fortunately for Israel, pipelines are easy to repair.)
The video claims that in 2007 the “Kirkuk Pipeline” exported 32 million barrels of Kurdish oil. The video does not say where that oil went. Most of it went to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. That flow will be cut down dramatically when the Kurdish oil starts to flow to Israel – which is one reason why the Turks are so unhappy, and want more bribe money. The video says the pipeline pumped “an extra $2 billion into the Iraqi economy.” Strange how everyone continues to starve in Iraq.
The video talks to Lt. Col. Kevin Hudie, in charge of protecting pipelines, who calls for more “outside experts” (meaning private oil companies) to come to Iraq.
was referring to the mighty pen, accurate like laser! with a splash of colour, a digital brush is like painting artillery! ;D