NYT: Rebuilding of Iraqi Oil Pipeline as Disaster Waiting to Happen

[Pirate Smile]

Rebuilding of Iraqi Oil Pipeline as Disaster Waiting to Happen

By JAMES GLANZ
Published: April 25, 2006

When Robert Sanders was sent by the Army to inspect the construction work an American company was doing on the banks of the Tigris River, 130 miles north of Baghdad, he expected to see workers drilling holes beneath the riverbed to restore a crucial set of large oil pipelines, which had been bombed during the invasion of Iraq.

What he found instead that day in July 2004 looked like some gargantuan heart-bypass operation gone nightmarishly bad. A crew had bulldozed a 300-foot-long trench along a giant drill bit in their desperate attempt to yank it loose from the riverbed. A supervisor later told him that the project's crews knew that drilling the holes was not possible, but that they had been instructed by the company in charge of the project to continue anyway.
A few weeks later, after the project had burned up all of the $75.7 million allocated to it, the work came to a halt.

The project, called the Fatah pipeline crossing, had been a critical element of a $2.4 billion no-bid reconstruction contract that a Halliburton subsidiary had won from the Army in 2003. The spot where about 15 pipelines crossed the Tigris had been the main link between Iraq's rich northern oil fields and the export terminals and refineries that could generate much-needed gasoline, heating fuel and revenue for Iraqis.

For all those reasons, the project's demise would seriously damage the American-led effort to restore Iraq's oil system and enable the country to pay for its own reconstruction. Exactly what portion of Iraq's lost oil revenue can be attributed to one failed project, no matter how critical, is impossible to calculate. But the pipeline at Al Fatah has a wider significance as a metaphor for the entire $45 billion rebuilding effort in Iraq. Although the failures of that effort are routinely attributed to insurgent attacks, an examination of this project shows that troubled decision-making and execution have played equally important roles.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/world/middleeast/25pipeline.html?hp&ex=1145937600&en=562c61591ce0e73c&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[acmavm]

1. There isn't one competent person, NOT ONE, involved in this whole

'war', occupation, or what the hell you want to call it. From giving troops sewage to drink to blowing billions on a pipeline 'bypass' that won't work, not one frigging functioning brain cell. Not one.

[truthisfreedom]

2. wow, what a scathing article. keep it up, NYT!

excellent work.

[Robbien]

3. "They charged as much as $100,000 a day as they waited on standby!"

Yikes.

[Pirate Smile]

4. If you want to get disgusted, read the entire thing. What a fiasco.

More:

"An independent United States office, The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, began an investigation of the project and issued a report earlier this year. It sharply criticized KBR for not relaying the problems, and concluded that "the geological complexities that caused the project to fail were not only foreseeable but predicted."

The company received a slap on the wrist when it got only about 4 percent of its potential bonus fees on the job order that contained the contract; there was no other financial penalty.

In interviews, two of the top Army Corps commanders who have had involvement at Al Fatah were reluctant to criticize the work done by KBR in Iraq. That was also the case in February when the Army Corps agreed to pay Halliburton most of its fees on a large fuel supply contract in Iraq, even though Pentagon auditors had found more than $200 million of the charges were questionable.

Congressional Democrats have accused Halliburton of enjoying special privileges because Vice President Dick Cheney was its chief executive before he became vice president."

[Roland99]

7. Remember that guy in Fahrenheit 9/11 talking about making lots of money?

[HuffleClaw]

5. WOW, what a convoluted mess of a CORRUPTION

and of COURSE, WHO ends up profiting?? and WHO is afraid to blow the whistle? i guess its business as usual for bushco.

[Auntie Bush]

8. They're doing ahellovajob over there as they did over here.

[Old and In the Way]

6. It's quite elegant, actually.

On the one hand, we, the US taxpayer, pay Republican companies to keep the Iraqi oil from getting to market.

On the other hand, because we are helping to limit supply, the Saudi Oil gets premium market pricing, making money for Big Oil.

It's a win-win.....for Republicans.

[ConcernedCanuk]

9. USA's "smart" bombs ruptured the main pipelines , by accident? - hmmmm

.
.
.

lets see . .

tear out the main pipeline

give contracts to your oil buddies to rebuild them

and when the money is gone

TAX THE USA CITIZEN'S SOME MORE!!

After all

They still need rebuilding, right?

SOMEONE'S gotta do it.

and meanwhile

between the reduced output from Iraq,

and the fear-generating sabre rattling over Iran

oil companies are making record profits!!

It's a win-win for Georgie's oil cronies.

All under the false umbrella of liberation and democracy.

(sigh)

[leftchick]

10. exactly CC!

one would have to be a moran to think otherwise.

[salin]

11. Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, no-bid contracts in April of 2003

Army finally checks the no progress in July of 2004, and we are just hearing about this in 2006? Meanwhile Halliburton's fines for some of its frauds have been reduced, the govt has agreed to pay overcharges on other jobs, and Halliburton and KBR keep getting more and more contracts.

Indeed (from the article): The company received a slap on the wrist when it got only about 4 percent of its potential bonus fees on the job order that contained the contract; there was no other financial penalty.

[Pirate Smile]

12. kick