31 August 2007 British forces, in control of southern Iraq since 2003, are expected to complete their withdrawal from Basrah in September and redeploy to a desert airbase, having already exited most urban centers in the last year. The move is interpreted by some as a prelude to a full British military withdrawal from Iraq, and a fight for supremacy is already raging in Iraq’s oil heartland among competing political…
Category: 2007
A historical
Iraq: Big Hopes, Little Progress
14 September 2007 International oil companies, big and small, flocked to Dubai over the past two weeks to hear Iraqi oil officials expound the riches of their oil fields. Few needed convincing of the country’s potential: After all, where else in the world are there 110 discovered reservoirs in almost 80 oil fields, with less than half developed, mostly partially? Yet their mood was dampened by the simple fact that…