Oil is our damnation

IT'S AN UNDERSTATEMENT TO SAY THAT Baghdad is a congested city. Practically every car on the streets is a taxi. And while the government has recently put a fleet of shiny new yellow taxis on the roads, most of the cabs are "private." Teachers, engineers, sometimes even doctors, drive the family car to make ends meet in a country where the average monthly salary is about $5 to $10.

Relatively speaking, riding in a taxi is a pretty inexpensive way to get around. Most destinations in Baghdad will cost about 750 Iraqi dinars (roughly forty cents). And going to the gas station to fill up is a bit of a formality--fuel is practically free. A gallon of gas costs less than five cents, while a liter of clean drinking water costs a quarter.

But cheap gas is one of the few perks ordinary Iraqis gain from their county's vast oil resources. Ask anyone in Iraq what they think the coming war is about and you'll get the same answer everywhere, "Bush wants our oil."

"Our oil is like our damnation," says Adil Raheem, a university professor in the oil-rich port city of Basra in southern Iraq. "It will never bring us health and happiness as long as we have the U.S. government and its so-called interests here."

In addition to teaching English literature at a private college in Basra, Raheem is a volunteer with Iraq's Disaster Preparedness Team. Every week, he attends meetings where plans are being mapped out for coping with what many see as an inevitable war.

"Unfortunately, we have experience that has taught usa lot," he says. He recalls his efforts to get ready for war the first time the United States invaded, in early 1991. This time, he is more prepared. "Back then, everything was theoretical," he says. "Now, it's practical."

Iraq's oil belt, the south of the country, is clearly bracing for war. Trucks zoom along the highway pulling large howitzer-type cannons. Armed military posts line the roads. Some are large walled-in encampments; others are small bunkers with a half-dozen soldiers. On hillsides, people have arranged white rocks to form written messages, as though they are meant to be seen by aircraft. In several places, the message is in English: "Down U.S.A." In the distance, refinery flames dot the skyline in one of the most oil-wealthy regions in the world.

Almost no one in Basra speaks of war in the future tense. The city of 1.7 million people lies within the so-called no-fly zones imposed by the U.S. and Britain, allegedly to protect Shi'ite Muslims from Saddam. Air raid sirens blare through the city as U.S. war planes zoom above, regularly dropping bombs. The Iraqi government says that more than 1,300 civilians have been killed in these attacks.

"I feel sick when I hear the planes flying above. I cry," says Kareema, who lives in a two-room shack with her husband and four children. "I have psychological shock. I can't bear it. I listen to the radio and I feel scared. We are asking God just to save us."

Kareema's husband, Majid, is a struggling artist. Since the Gulf War, the family has had to move twice, both times to more sparse dwellings. The family members speak sadly of the "big" house they once had. Majid walks with a limp. During the Gulf War, he was driving in a carpool to the factory where he was working when a missile hit the road in front of them. Three of his co-workers were killed, while Majid and six others sustained injuries.

The two small rooms in their shack are full of Majid's paintings of Imam Ali, one of the holiest figures in Shi'ite Islam. The front courtyard of the house is infested with flies, hovering around the enclosed hole in the ground that serves as a toilet. Just a few feet away is the open-air family bedroom--four shabby bedsprings with thin, rotting foam mattresses.

Like many men in Basra, Majid works on the periphery of Iraq's oil industry as a mechanic. His monthly pay is a thin stack of nearly worthless dinars.

While Majid and his co-workers see little benefit from their country's vast oil resources, American companies are already making a killing off of what many see as a final push to seize control of Iraq's oil. Halliburton, once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, helped Saddam rebuild the industry in the 1990s, and now is turning a buck by servicing the massive troop buildup in the region.

Far away from Majid's shack in Basra, Western oil corporations salivate at their prospects in a post-Saddam Iraq. But it's not just the Exxon Mobils and Texacos. A recent report by Deutsche Bank says oil field services companies like Halliburton are in a prime position to profit from a war.

"We expect to see oil service contracts to rehabilitate old fields, but anticipate long-drawn-out negotiations on new fields," the report says, estimating the possible revenues to oil field services companies at around $1.5 billion. The New York Times reported on October 26: "Industry experts and the State Department have said that oil revenues will probably finance the rebuilding of Iraq, which has reserves second only to Saudi Arabia's."