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The Mirror, UK
May 26 2005
ROUTE OF OIL EVIL?
Pipe blamed for war is open
By Vanessa Allen
THE massive oil pipeline hailed as the real reason for America's war
on terror was opened for business yesterday.
The first section of the US-backed 1,090-mile pipeline began carrying
oil from the Caspian Sea to the West.
It will eventually deliver a million barrels of crude a day across
one of the most dangerous regions on earth.
Backers of the he £1.2 billion project claim it will protect energy
supplies to the US and Europe for the next 50 years and reduce our
reliance on the Middle East.
But its critics say it was the real reason for America's willingness
to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.
They say the US used its much-vaunted war on terror as justification
for establishing military bases along much of the pipeline route.
The pipe - a prime target for terrorism - is so big it will take 10
million barrels of crude to fill it.
It was officially opened in the central Asian republic of Azerbaijan
yesterday and provides the first direct link between the landlocked
Caspian - thought to contain the world's third- largest oil and gas
reserves - and the Mediterranean. It was built by a consortium led by
British Petroleum and will take until August to fill completely. Then
it will carry one per cent of the world's oil production every day.
BP chief executive Lord John Browne said it was "a heroic engineering
achievement".
The pipeline's route from Azerbaijan through Georgia and Turkey takes
it close to war-torn Chechnya.
It then travels through south-eastern Turkey, where Kurdish
separatists are waging a bloody insurgency.
Azerbaijan itself is locked in conflict with neighbour Armenia and
Georgia's government was overthrown in the US-backed "Rose
Revolution" in 2003.
Writing in the Daily Mirror in October 2001, foreign correspondent
John Pilger warned that the US was using its war on terror as a
thinly-veiled justification for setting up military bases across
central Asia.
He wrote: "Bush's concealed agenda is to exploit the oil and gas
reserves in the Caspian basin, the greatest source of untapped fossil
fuel on earth."
May 26 2005
ROUTE OF OIL EVIL?
Pipe blamed for war is open
By Vanessa Allen
THE massive oil pipeline hailed as the real reason for America's war
on terror was opened for business yesterday.
The first section of the US-backed 1,090-mile pipeline began carrying
oil from the Caspian Sea to the West.
It will eventually deliver a million barrels of crude a day across
one of the most dangerous regions on earth.
Backers of the he £1.2 billion project claim it will protect energy
supplies to the US and Europe for the next 50 years and reduce our
reliance on the Middle East.
But its critics say it was the real reason for America's willingness
to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.
They say the US used its much-vaunted war on terror as justification
for establishing military bases along much of the pipeline route.
The pipe - a prime target for terrorism - is so big it will take 10
million barrels of crude to fill it.
It was officially opened in the central Asian republic of Azerbaijan
yesterday and provides the first direct link between the landlocked
Caspian - thought to contain the world's third- largest oil and gas
reserves - and the Mediterranean. It was built by a consortium led by
British Petroleum and will take until August to fill completely. Then
it will carry one per cent of the world's oil production every day.
BP chief executive Lord John Browne said it was "a heroic engineering
achievement".
The pipeline's route from Azerbaijan through Georgia and Turkey takes
it close to war-torn Chechnya.
It then travels through south-eastern Turkey, where Kurdish
separatists are waging a bloody insurgency.
Azerbaijan itself is locked in conflict with neighbour Armenia and
Georgia's government was overthrown in the US-backed "Rose
Revolution" in 2003.
Writing in the Daily Mirror in October 2001, foreign correspondent
John Pilger warned that the US was using its war on terror as a
thinly-veiled justification for setting up military bases across
central Asia.
He wrote: "Bush's concealed agenda is to exploit the oil and gas
reserves in the Caspian basin, the greatest source of untapped fossil
fuel on earth."