Baghdad Gas Crisis Blamed on Insurgent Sabotage

A monthlong gasoline crisis that has paralyzed the Iraqi capital is the result of an insurgent sabotage campaign aimed at choking off fuel supplies to Baghdad, officials say.

Although attacks on the country’s overall oil infrastructure have decreased, pipelines and supply depots around the capital have been increasingly targeted, Western and Iraqi officials report. And with ambushes and bombings making many roads to Baghdad unsafe, fewer tanker trucks are able to deliver fuel to the capital.

Lines at Baghdad gas stations stretch for miles. Officials say the attacks seem designed to further stress the beleaguered population, sow tension and diminish confidence in the U.S.-backed interim government. The shortage is a testament, they say, to insurgents’ increasing sophistication.

“They have succeeded in limiting petroleum products in the Baghdad area,” said one Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Oil Ministry spokesman Assim Jihad described the sabotage efforts as a calculated and savvy campaign of economic and psychological warfare, designed to emphasize the government’s inability to provide even the most basic services.

“It weakens the government in front of the citizens,” he said.

The shortages led to violence Wednesday when an off-duty police officer killed a gas station security guard who refused to let the officer exceed his legal fuel allotment.

Fuel shortages have been a recurring problem in the 20 months since the U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein. But this latest crisis, entering its fourth week, is the worst most residents can remember since immediately after the invasion.

Motorists are queued up around Baghdad gas stations in lines as long as 2 1/2 miles, blocking intersections, looping through city squares and in some cases spanning the length of Tigris River bridges.

Government employees skip work to spend the day in line, bringing blankets and thermoses of tea to ward off the winter cold.

Baghdad’s black market has responded in kind. Young boys waving bottomless plastic soda bottles, used to funnel fuel into gas tanks, are present on almost every street.

Still, many citizens are willing to brave the long lines for a simple reason: The heavily subsidized gasoline is practically free -- a gallon costs about 9 cents.

“It’s cheaper than water,” said Jihad, the Oil Ministry spokesman.

Even in periods of no shortages, black market prices are at least four times higher. During the current crisis, the black market rate has shot up to about $2.25 a gallon.

Although previous shortages have been partially caused by diminished output, ministry officials say the current crisis stems largely from the government’s inability to safely deliver crude to the capital.

“It’s like the arteries in a body,” Jihad said of the vital pipelines that carry petroleum from Iraq’s northern and southern fields.

In an interview last week with one of the capital’s daily newspapers, called Baghdad, Oil Ministry Undersecretary Abdel Jabar Wakaie said pipelines and supply depots around the capital were being increasingly targeted, and the roads leading to Baghdad were often unsafe for tankers.

As a result, he said, Baghdad’s main Dora oil refinery, though fully functional, was now idle three days out of four.

Because of the shortages, the government has limited each driver to 6.6 gallons of fuel per vehicle when they come to the gas stations. But customers say the limit can easily be evaded with a tip to underpaid station attendants.

Iraqi police officers and national guard troops are posted at many stations to keep the lines orderly. But many drivers complain that the security forces are not enforcing -- and are even breaking -- the law.

Waiting at a station in the western neighborhood of Hurriya, Kamil Hussein complained bitterly about national guard troops allowing friends, relatives and good tippers to jump to the front of the line.

Police officers, meanwhile, have been known to cut to the front, lights flashing, fill up beyond the legal allotment and then sell the fuel on the black market.

Several times in the last week, police officers have been spotted selling gasoline from plastic jerrycans across the street from crowded filling stations.

The slaying Wednesday morning at a station in Baghdad’s upscale Yarmouk district involved an off-duty, out-of-uniform officer who witnesses said flew into a rage when denied special privileges.

Employees at the station said the officer filled up his car, then returned with a plastic jerrycan. The security guard assigned to the station refused him service, and in the ensuing fight, the officer shot the guard in the head in front of a shocked crowd.

By Wednesday afternoon, the station, one of the capital’s primary fuel centers, had been shut down. A few drivers loitered around the edges in hope that it would reopen, while a police officer yelled over his megaphone for the motorists to disperse.

Efforts to confirm details of the incident with the Oil and Interior ministries were unsuccessful, but station employees and police officers on the scene said that the killer was a policeman and that he had been arrested.

Inside the dim station office, the manager, who refused to give his name, grimly chain-smoked. “The people just can’t stand it anymore,” he said.

Conspiracy theories abound as to why one of the world’s most oil-rich nations can’t supply sufficient fuel to its citizens. Although some blame insurgent attacks, others claim that the crisis has been artificially created by the U.S. and the interim government to keep the country unsettled before parliamentary elections scheduled for January.

But Jihad said there were less-nefarious explanations for the shortages. In addition to sabotage, a massive increase in the number of cars is contributing to the crisis. An estimated 750,000 new vehicles have come into Iraq in the last year.

“Every family now has two or three cars,” Jihad said. “We just can’t meet the new needs.”

Adding to that increased demand is the greater usage of gas-powered generators because of chronic power outages.

Many drivers also cite corruption and theft at all levels of the supply chain.

“Everybody is benefiting from this, starting with the directors general in the Ministry of Oil ... and ending with the workers at the pumps,” said Rifaat Hussein, 25.

A manager of one of Baghdad’s government-run stations placed the blame on the many privately owned stations. All stations must sell gas at the mandated price, but private station owners are notorious for routing whole tankers full of fuel they’ve bought straight onto the black market, said the manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The private station owners are the real thieves,” he said. “Government employees are cowards. They would never steal like those in the private sector. Maybe they would take a few gallons or give some to their relatives, but they’d never steal such large amounts.”

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Times staff writer Alissa J. Rubin contributed to this report.