[BITList] Iraq Bans Security Firms on Oil Fields

[franka]

Sounds more like Iran pulling the strings to me as they are the only 
ones with anything to gain
frank


Iraq Bans Security Firms on Oil Fields
UPI
|
Monday, March 19, 2012

With U.S. forces gone from Iraq, Baghdad has banned foreign security 
contractors, long abhorred by Iraqis, from the 12 major oil fields being 
developed by international companies, mainly in the south.

But the government may find that hard to enforce.

Iraq's military and security forces, still being trained by Americans, 
have shown themselves incapable of maintaining stability and protecting 
these vital and vulnerable facilities amid a surge in political violence 
since the U.S. withdrawal was completed Dec. 18.

The order by Iraq's Oil Ministry was issued Feb. 29 and signed by 
Director General Faisal Walid. The contractors, the ministry declared, 
will be replaced by Iraq's Oil Police who "will provide the necessary 
protection."

Whether the 31,000-strong U.S.-trained force is capable of shielding 
Iraq's vast oil and gas infrastructure, that includes 4,500 miles of 
pipelines which Baghdad is expanding under a $50 billion upgrade 
program, remains to be seen.

The ban reflects a wider drive by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's 
Shiite-dominated government to impose tough restrictions on the tens of 
thousands of private security personnel who remain in Iraq, and 
eventually to throw them all out.

In February, the government introduced a parliamentary bill aimed at 
limiting the number of foreign security contractors operating in Iraq. 
These companies using heavily armed mercenaries, most of them 
ex-military men, have a reputation in Iraq for reckless operations in 
which innocent civilians have been killed and with few of the 
perpetrators being brought to justice.

The companies, operating with U.S. sanction, have operated with little 
oversight or accountability. Many of the foreign mercenaries are also 
hostile toward Iraqis generally.

The most notorious incident involving private military companies was the 
killing of 17 civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square by men from 
Blackwater Worldwide Sept. 16, 2007. Iraqis were incensed when a legal 
case against Blackwater was dismissed. The legitimacy of the U.S. 
occupation was seriously undermined and in the eyes of many forever 
discredited.

The company changed its name to Xe to distance itself from such 
atrocities but its rebranded former employees still operate in Iraq.

"The U.S. has now left Iraq," the Middle East Economic Digest reported," 
but the legacy of the private security firms remains.

"Baghdad's security woes have been described as a competition for 
legitimacy.

"If the government lets armed contractors operate on its soil without 
accountability, it cannot claim to be legitimate and will not be viewed 
as such by the locals," MEED observed.

The dismissal of the case against Blackwater in 2010 is a painful 
reminder of this âEUR¦ Whether the Oil Ministry can push through with 
plans to remove all foreign security firms from its oil fields is a 
different issue âEUR¦

"The Oil Police, who are expected to take over the job of providing 
security, are still relatively young and largely untested.

"The foreign oil firms who employ private contractors to protect their 
assets may yet have enough leverage to keep hiring them for now."

Some of the 109 security companies registered in Iraq say they're 
already having problems, such as security operating permits and 
obtaining visas for foreign employees. These, officials say, are just 
part of what they see as a government drive to impose administrative 
roadblocks to make things difficult for foreign contractors.

Most of them are U.S., British or European firms that employ in excess 
of 36,000 personnel, more than half of them foreigners.

Western oilmen say that if these operatives were forced out of Iraq, it 
would leave the oil fields and their widespread infrastructure, widely 
attacked during the post-2003 invasion fighting, highly vulnerable to 
attack by insurgents.

This at a time when Baghdad wants to quadruple production to around 12 
million barrels per day from the current level of 3 million bpd. Iraq 
cannot achieve this without the score of oil majors that have signed 
20-year production contracts with Baghdad since 2009. The government's 
whole reconstruction program depends on oil revenues.

Maliki appears to be seeking to set himself up as dictator controlling a 
high centralized power structure. To achieve that he will need to 
develop Iraq's vast energy wealth.

And to do that, he'll need to keep the foreign oil companies sweet 
because they're the ones providing the investment capital and the 
advanced technologies that will make it happen.

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