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Iraq Pipeline Resumes Pumping Oil
By Waiel Faleh
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, March 4, 1999; 3:27 a.m. EST
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq resumed shipping oil to
Turkey early today through a pipeline shut down when
U.S. airstrikes damaged communication centers that
control the flow of oil.
The Iraqi Oil Ministry said in a statement that work at
the two centers hit by U.S. warplanes Sunday and
Monday in northern Iraq resumed at dawn. Oil was
flowing at normal levels, it said.
About half the oil Iraq exports flows through the
Iraqi-Turkish pipeline, some 1 million barrels a day.
``Oil Ministry employees ... were able to fix the damage
caused by the frustrated American ravens,'' the
statement said.
Neither Iraq nor the United Nations, which first reported
that oil was flowing again, said how Iraqi engineers
repaired the damage.
Iraq has been barred from exporting oil freely since U.N.
sanctions were imposed in 1990 to punish Iraq for
invading Kuwait. Under a U.N. oil-for-food program, Iraq
can sell $5.2 billion in oil over six months to buy food,
medicine and other humanitarian goods.
United Nations officials had expressed concern about
the impact of the two airstrikes on the oil-for-food
program.
Low oil prices and the dilapidated state of Iraq's oil
industry have resulted in a $900 million shortfall in what
the United Nations needs to run the program.
On Wednesday, the program's leader, Benon Sevan,
told the U.N. Security Council in New York that if the oil
flow resumed within a day, there would be only
``minimal delays'' in exporting oil out of the Turkish port
Ceyhan.
There had been enough oil stored at the port -- 2.38
million barrels -- to keep ships carrying their normal
loads, he said.
American and British planes have hit Iraqi sites almost
daily since mid-December. In the U.N. Security Council
meeting Wednesday, the United States and Britain
defended themselves against criticism of the strikes.
Deputy U.S. Ambassador Nancy Soderberg said the
U.S. pilots were acting in self-defense as they patrolled
the ``no-fly'' zones, which Washington and its allies
established after the 1991 Persian Gulf War to protect
minority Kurds in northern Iraq and Shiites in the south
from President Saddam Hussein's army.
Washington argues that the ``no-fly'' zones are justified
under U.N. Security Council resolutions that call for the
protection of minorities in Iraq. Russia and China,
however, say the council has never explicitly authorized
the ``no-fly'' zones, and they maintain that the patrols
violate Iraq's sovereignty.
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