Word: saddams
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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April 2003: Saddam Hussein is on the run, and the sky over Baghdad is choked with black smoke as looters ransack and torch government buildings. But in one district, U.S. Marines stand guard on the steps of a large modern building, their weapons trained on the street and the footbridge outside. It is the Ministry of Oil. Let this treasure chest burn, the thinking goes, and Iraq goes with...
...years of catastrophic violence in Baghdad, the building has survived intact. But a far quieter battle now rages inside its walls, one that could ultimately prove as critical to Iraq's future as the war: how to reorganize the country's mammoth oil industry after nearly 25 years of Saddam's dictatorship, international sanctions and bloody conflict. Oil revenues, which are potentially worth $70 billion a year--virtually all of Iraq's export earnings--are desperately needed to rebuild the shattered economy and end its overwhelming dependence on Washington. And oil companies from ExxonMobil to China National Petroleum Corp...
Iraqi officials estimate it will cost about $20 billion and take five years to repair and modernize the industry, whose infrastructure had been rotting for decades because of international sanctions and Saddam's mismanagement. Insurgents have been attacking oil pipelines since 2003. A key northern line that leads to the export terminal in Ceyhan, Turkey, has lain idle for months since it was blown up. The industry also faces skills shortages. Years of suicide attacks and kidnappings have drained the country of its oil engineers, who have fled...
...drafting the law, officials had to tread carefully on explosive ethnic divisions. After decades in which Saddam barred Kurds from drilling in the resource-rich north, Kurdish officials suspected that the Shi'ite-dominated government in Baghdad would try to seize control of their resource. So the new law would let regional governments negotiate directly with foreign firms. Each contract would need approval from a new Baghdad-based Federal Oil and Gas Council, in which each ethnic group will be represented. The council has 60 days to challenge a contract and send its objections to arbitration. A separate revenue-sharing...
What?s more, the American politicians Allawi is courting will likely find it uncomfortable to be on the same side as Saddam's old party...