Oil shortages fuel Iraqi anger

By Barbara Plett BBC correspondent in Baghdad

Iraqis are suffering such a serious fuel shortage they will have to get emergency imports, even though their country has the world's second largest oil reserves.

American soldiers monitor the petrol pumps

Drivers now spend their days waiting for petrol, some of them queuing up well before dawn in lines that stretch for kilometres.

And it has not improved their tempers to hear that the United States and Britain are vying for control of Iraqi oil revenues in a new Security Council resolution.

The Mansour station in Baghdad is one place where many feel it is worth the wait: it sells super unleaded fuel at pre-war prices of cents per litre.

Black market

American soldiers monitor the entrance and watch the petrol pumps.

We will be robbed if the sanctions stop

Karim Taher
driver

But the fuel comes from reserve supplies. Iraqi oil production itself is in post war limbo, partly because there has been looting at oil fields, and many workers do not feel safe enough to return.

There is order at this station, but in general petrol sales are in a state of chaos.

"The black market is very big now," says station manager Fawzi Ali.

"We can't control it without protection, we can't control anything. The citizen here fills his car and gets outside, and then siphons it from his tank and sells it on the black market for 10 times more than the official price."

The Americans have announced plans to import emergency supplies for at least the next month. The occupying powers urge patience, they say they cannot fix the country so soon after the war.

Key obstacle

But many Iraqis are questioning whether they can govern the peace, in their anger remembering the order imposed by the old regime, not its abuses.

Drivers now spend their days waiting for petrol

"George Bush gave promises but he's done nothing," said one angry driver.

"There's no medicine, no food, no petrol, no electricity, no safety, no security, nothing. Saddam Hussein provided everything, even free medicine. There's nothing like this from America, Americans only point the gun at people, when you talk to them, they say go go go, only this."

A key obstacle holding up oil production is the unknown fate of United Nations sanctions.

The Security Council is debating a draft resolution meant to lift them. But it would take control of Iraq's oil revenues from the UN and give it to the US and Britain until a legitimate Iraqi Government is formed, and that doesn't go down well here.

"Now [the Americans and British] are claiming they will stop the sanctions, in order to get more wealth from Iraq than before," says driver Karim Taher.

"We will be robbed if the sanctions stop. We don't want any barrel of oil to go out of Iraq without the observation of the United Nations."

Britain and the United States have promised to use the money to rebuild Iraq, in close consultation with Iraqis.

But the reality for many here is that after sanctions, Saddam Hussein and war, their greatest wealth is in the hands of an occupying power, and that makes some even more bitter about this fuel shortage.