Odds and Ends for Friday
According to the Middle East News Agency (MENA), Syria’s state-owned oil marketing company informed clients that export volumes for the remainder of 2003 would drop by half, effective immediately. This comes 10 days after U.S. forces cut off a pipeline running through northwestern Iraq into Syria. While repeatedly denying receipt of embargoed oil, it appears Syria was getting over 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) from Iraq. In December 2002, according to MENA, Syria’s domestic crude output was about 510,000 bpd, while domestic consumption was estimated at 295,000 bpd.
According to the Middle East News Agency (MENA), Syria’s state-owned oil marketing company informed clients that export volumes for the remainder of 2003 would drop by half, effective immediately. This comes 10 days after U.S. forces cut off a pipeline running through northwestern Iraq into Syria. While repeatedly denying receipt of embargoed oil, it appears Syria was getting over 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) from Iraq. In December 2002, according to MENA, Syria’s domestic crude output was about 510,000 bpd, while domestic consumption was estimated at 295,000 bpd. During that month, Syria reportedly exported over double its expected surplus, some 437,000 bpd of oil. Game over.
On the other hand, Israel and Jordan have reportedly agreed to begin talks on the reactivation of the Mosul-Haifa oil pipeline via Jordan, unused for 55 years since the British left Palestine.
Journalists have a lot to answer for. Eason Jordan, chief news exec at CNN writes about his 13 trips to Baghdad to convince Saddam’s government to keep CNN in town. Now he reveals the cost– to others. “One of our Iraqi cameramen was abducted… beaten and subjected to electroshock torture in the basement of a secret police (HQ).” And “A Kuwaiti woman was captured by Iraqi secret police occupying her country in 1990 for `crimes’, one of which included speaking with CNN on the phone. They beat her daily for two months, forcing her father to watch. In January 1991 … they smashed her skull and tore her body apart limb by limb. A plastic bag containing her body parts was left on the doorstep of her family’s home.” Says Mr. Jordan, “I felt awful having these stories bottled up inside me.” Not as bad as the victims.
AP reported on “foreign fighters” in Iraq. “Journalists were taken to a training camp east of Baghdad to see about 40 people who were described as Arab volunteers. They expressed hatred of America and a commitment to martyrdom in the name of jihad, or holy war. They said they came from Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia … A U.S. infantry company was under sniper fire from buildings in central Baghdad when Iraqi civilians took advantage of a lull and approached to say the snipers were not Iraqis but Yemenis and Syrians.”
In a similar vein, The Times of London reported, “Palestinians had not expected Saddam’s armies to defeat … the United States and Britain. [But] they had hoped that an Iraqi resistance that would give the invaders a bloody nose and rekindle a sense of Arab pride.” One Palestinian said, “Now he has let us down. It’s a great disappointment. He has become like all the others who betrayed us. We feel totally depressed, but we will overcome it because we are used to these feelings.” If that’s what invokes “pride” and “depression” we see little chance of serious Israel-Palestinian negotiations.