Attacks on oil costing Iraq at least $28 million a day

Kevin G. Hall, Knight Ridder… Attacks on oil costing Iraq at least $28 million a day

Kevin G. Hall, Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON – Insurgent attacks are costing Iraq about 500,000 barrels of oil a day, almost a third of its daily output. At today’s oil prices, that’s costing the country at least $28 million in export earnings every day.

In the run-up to the war, the Bush administration and Iraqi exiles said oil exports would provide badly needed petrodollars to help rebuild Iraq and offset the cost of the U.S.-led occupation.

“The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 [billion] and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years,” then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told Congress on March 27, 2003, shortly after the war began. “-We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.”

But since the March 2003 invasion, Iraqi oil production has failed to match the prewar level of 2.5 million barrels per day. Production briefly approached that level in March and April 2004, but insurgent attacks on pipelines, oil wells and other infrastructure have eroded output since then.

Bush returns from Asia

Ron Hutcheson, Knight Ridder Newspapers

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia – President George W. Bush was heading for home via Mongolia Monday morning with little to celebrate after a weeklong Asia trip that highlighted tensions with China.

Bush’s scheduled four-hour layover in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator – the first visit to the country by a sitting U.S. president – followed talks in Beijing that failed to resolve differences between the United States and the world’s most populous nation.

Bush added Mongolia to his itinerary in recognition of the country’s transition to democracy from communism and its help in Iraq. Mongolia has about 130 troops in Iraq.

“Both our nations know that our responsibilities in freedom’s cause do not end at our borders – and that survival of liberty in our own lands increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands,” Bush said in remarks prepared for delivery in Ulan Bator.

Bush prodded Chinese President Hu Jintao to give U.S. companies better access to China’s huge markets, but got no firm commitments for action. He also failed to make any headway on human rights and religious freedom.

“Obviously, this is a long conversation and a long haul,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters traveling with Bush. “It is not a system that is going to change overnight.”

Despite their differences, the two presidents stressed their willingness to work together. Bush said his ability to speak frankly with Hu showed the strength of the U.S.-China relationship.

Democrat calls for immediate withdrawal from Iraq

James Kuhnhenn, Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON – Rep. John Murtha, a hawkish Marine Corps veteran and one of the Democratic Party’s most respected military experts, called Thursday for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, pushing the debate over President Bush’s war policies to new heights of intensity and vitriol.

“Our military’s done everything that has been asked of them,” he said. “The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It’s time to bring the troops home.”

In staking out such a strong stance, the steel-country centrist from western Pennsylvania gave Democrats a sober, pro-military voice to argue the case against the war. Murtha sided with his party’s liberal wing, not with Democrats who want a phased pullout or want Bush to set a departure timetable.

Murtha, a Vietnam veteran, joins a growing number of military veterans in Congress who are putting the administration on the defensive about the war and related policies. Some critics think growing skepticism about the war throughout the country is pushing Congress to a tipping point, illustrated this week by a bipartisan Senate resolution calling for the president to spell out an exit strategy from Iraq.

“We’re the targets,” Murtha said in a speech in the Capitol. “We’re uniting the enemy against us. And there’s terrorism all over the world that there wasn’t before we went into Iraq.”

Online messages target black fraternity at South Carolina school

Michael Laforgia, Knight Ridder Newspapers

Racially offensive Internet postings directed toward a black fraternity at the University of South Carolina have school officials re-examining the racial climate of the Greek community.

Most of the anonymous comments on fratty.net are about members of Omega Psi Phi, the historically black fraternity that is building a house in USC’s previously all-white Greek Village. The messages, riddled with obscenities and racial epithets, express anxiety over black students moving into the neighborhood and allege that school administrators hold black and white fraternities to different standards.

While there’s no way to identify every message board user, USC officials said they’ve found evidence that at least some of the users attend the university. Users must register with the Web site, popular with fraternities and sororities nationwide, before viewing message board posts. Registration is open to anyone.

USC officials have condemned the comments, and are quick to point out that the offenders represent only a handful of the school’s many Greek students.

“It’s just what you’d read on a bathroom stall in some filthy place,” said Student Life Director Jerry Brewer, whose office oversees the Department of Greek Life. “I’m just appalled that this just happened.”

Brewer called an emergency meeting with campus Greek organizations last Monday to address the message boards. Since then, university officials have contacted the national Greek organizations whose members could be identified, notified USC’s Office of Student Judicial Programs and scrutinized the message boards to make sure no laws were broken.