http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=332835&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=YThe United States has asked Israel to check the possibility of pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in the Israeli port city of Haifa. The request came in a telegram last week from a senior Pentagon official to a top Israeli Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office views the Iraqi oil pipeline to Haifa as a “bonus” the U.S. should give to Israel in return for its unequivocal support for the American-led campaign in Iraq, and had asked the Americans for the official telegram. The new pipeline would take oil from the Kirkuk area, where some 40 percent of Iraqi oil is produced, and transport it via Mosul, and then across Jordan to Israel. The U.S. telegram included a request for a cost estimate for repairing the Mosul-Haifa pipeline that was in use prior to 1948. During the War of Independence, the Iraqis stopped the flow of oil to Haifa and the pipeline fell into disrepair over the years. Sources in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office confirmed yesterday that the Bush Administration is looking into the possibility of building a new Iraqi oil pipeline via Jordan into Israel. (There is also a pipeline running via Syria that has not been used in some three decades.) The Israeli National Infrastructure Ministry recently conducted research indicating that construction of a 42-inch diameter pipeline between Kirkuk and Haifa would cost about $400,000 per kilometer. The old Mosul-Haifa pipeline was only 8 inches in diameter. Israeli National Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky said yesterday that the port of Haifa is an attractive destination for Iraqi oil and that he plans to discuss this matter with the U.S. secretary of energy during his planned visit to Washington next month. Paritzky added that the plan depends on Jordan’s consent and that Jordan would receive a transit fee for allowing the Iraqi oil to piped through its territory. The minister noted, however, that “due to pan-Arab concerns, it will be hard for the Jordanians to agree to the flow of Iraqi oil to European countries via Jordan and Israel.” Iraqi oil is now being transported via Turkey to a small Mediterranean port near the Syrian border. The transit fee collected by Turkey is an important source of revenue for the country. This line has been damaged by sabotage twice in recent weeks and is presently out of service. In response to rumors about the possible Kirkuk-Mosul-Haifa pipeline, Turkey has warned Israel that it would regard this development as a serious blow to Turkish-Israeli relations. Iraq is one of the world’s largest oil producers, with the potential of reaching about 2.5 million barrels a day. Oil exports were halted after the Gulf War in 1991 and then were allowed again on a limited basis (1.5 million barrels per day) to finance the import of food and medicines. Iraq is currently exporting several hundred thousand barrels of oil per day.
IslamicSydney Editors Notes: This new high capacity oil pipeline will give Israel effective control of the majority of Iraqi oil (and Iraqi-based refined petroleum products) that are used by Western European countries. Israel is nearly bankrupt, and the Israeli Prime Minister has been ‘marketing’ this new pipeline to British ‘investors’ (read: investment banks) to induce them to co-own, and pay for, the new pipeline inside Israel, and sponsor renovations and expansions to the aging oil refining facilities in Haifa and, as a consequence, effectively control the energy economics of other European countries. For many years Turkey has been the primary pipeline operator that moves Iraqi oil to Western Europe via a small Mediterranean port city near their Syrian border. When the new Israeli ‘bonus’ oil pipeline starts pumping, under British financing and joint Israeli/British ownership and management, the Turks will loose all of their ‘oil transfer fee’ revenue, and that revenue is a major source of cash income for their entire country.
Now we allknow why some desperate Turks bombed two long respected Istanbul synagogues, a valued British Bank and the British Consulate. The theft of that oil transfer revenue will destroy the Turkish economy.