Looting Leaves Iraq's Oil Industry in Ruins

Looting, sabotage and the continued lack of security at oil facilities are the most recent problems the industry and its American overseers must address in order to get petroleum flowing again, especially for export.

Mr. Leaby and other oil officials think that some damage to the oil industry can only be explained as sabotage. He points to the constant looting of electric facilities that provide the power to run oil pumping stations and other plants.

Phillip J. Carroll, the former Shell Oil executive who now heads an American-backed advisory committee to the Oil Ministry, said that an oil pipeline running from the north-central town of Beiji to Baghdad had been punctured by shooting, and that a spark from a passing car had set off an explosion and fire that burned for three days.

"There have been other attacks on facilities that seem senseless," Mr. Carroll said, "except to impede the development of the oil sector."

He conceded that despite the ongoing havoc, the military could do little more to help.