In this post from June of last year, I remarked on how oil smuggling finances the Iraq insurgency. Journalist Lisa Margonelli has started a new NY Times blog called “Pipeline,” focusing on oil and politics. If you have access to Times Select, it’s worth reading. Here she riffs on the popular movie “Blood Diamond” and shows that “conflict oil” wreaks more havoc around the world than diamonds ever could.
I raise this in light of Bush’s stupid and cynical plan to send yet more U.S. troops into Iraq. Here’s the dynamic those soldiers will be up against, according to Iraqi scholar Bilal Wahab:
“A single tanker [carrying stolen oil] can make $7450 in profit, after paying bribes. A good car bomb costs about $7000, and if you assume that 30 percent of a single day’s smuggling is going to the insurgents, then you have the capacity for 400 car bombs a day.” By [Wahab’s] reckoning, the carnage in Iraq has hardly even begun.
Mr. Wahab’s article in the Middle East Quarterly is essential further reading on this topic. (I’m particularly interested in the section on oil exploration in Iraqi Kurdistan, and how it could further corruption and conflict between the KDP and PUK ruling parties.)
Those who still insist on chanting “No Blood for Oil” have it backwards. It’s not the U.S. spilling blood in order to extract oil — at least not anymore. It’s the insurgents stealing and selling oil in order to continue spilling blood.
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