Basra oil fuels fight to control Iraq's economic might
The province sits on as much as 20 percent of the Middle East's oil reserves.
from the September 19, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
Revitalization stalled
The struggle over power and resources – which extends to the halls of government in Baghdad – means that any prospect for Basra's riches being used to lift millions of Iraqis out of their misery and give jobs to disaffected youth remains a fiction.
"There is great deprivation and high unemployment. Plants are destroyed. The last 30 years for Basra have been 20 years of war followed by 10 years of economic deprivation," says Hamid al-Thalemi, a member of the local provincial council, who belongs to the secular party of former Iraqi premier Iyad Allawi.
Basra's infrastructure and economy suffered greatly from the impact of the devastating eight-year war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s that was followed by the Gulf War in 1990.
"The government has no economic development strategy … the government is helpless … it's a catastrophe," adds Mr. Thalemi.
Agriculture and industry are in ruins, and many infrastructure projects such as water and sewerage repairs remain unrealized. Even the once-thriving date business is barely operational, although the province has the highest density of palm trees in Iraq, according to Thalemi.
Britain has pledged about $1.5 billion for reconstruction in Iraq with some of this money spent in Basra, where the last contingent of its troops is still stationed. They laid water pipes at a cost of $18 million and partially repaired electricity transmission and distribution networks, among other projects.
In the meantime, the city's main hospital is dumping its waste in the Shatt Al-Arab waterway every day. The nearby Al-Bardhia station, one of the city's main water plants adjacent to the palaces vacated by the British, pumps that water to residents. "This is a major crime, people are drinking this water," says Thalemi.
Growing tribal dissent
Inside a tribal guesthouse in the village of Zraiji, sandwiched between the Majnoon and Nahr Omar oil fields, elders from the Bani Malik, a major tribal confederation, gathered late last month to discuss the trouble at Majnoon oil field and voice their anger at the Shiite Islamist parties that rule the province and the country.
Sheikh Manie al-Maliki spoke first, recounting how he was approached by other tribes in the area to join them in stopping work at Majnoon. He refused because they threatened violence and sabotage. "We do not want to descend to that level and that's why we are sidelined," he says.
His village of 3,000 desperately needs the jobs, with only seven of its men employed in oil facilities protection, a 15,000-strong force dominated by partisans of Waeli. The elders say they derive no benefit from oil riches, but also their agricultural lands are fallow and need rehabilitation because they were battlefields in the Iran-Iraq War.
Now, they accuse provincial and central authorities in Baghdad of cronyism, corruption, and incompetence. Most say they regret having voted in 2005 for the UIA and say they were tricked by the party's appeal to sectarian passions and considerations at the time.
"It was nothing but empty promises. Anything built on sectarianism and cronyism does not work," says Sheikh Manie. "Turbaned clerics sat here, and we are simple people, and they started telling us the marjaiya [Shiite religious authority] wants this."
Another elder is blunter. "They are gangs, not political parties," he says.
Standing on the edge of Zraiji at sunset, one can see and feel the flames from the smokestacks, burning the precious natural gas that is extracted with oil from the Nahr Omar fields. They are a vivid reminder of Iraq's untapped, and often wasted, potential.
RSS feed
