BAIJI, Iraq (AFP) - Tribal loyalties and political patronage, combined with a lack of effective intelligence, are undermining efforts to stem mounting sabotage against Iraqi oil infrastructure, US commanders complain.
This grim industrial town on the main highway north of Baghdad forms the hub of the pipeline network serving the oilfields of northern Iraq and also houses a key power plant and a fertiliser factory.
A vital export artery heads north to Turkey, while another pipeline heads south to supply the capital.
But despite the importance of the network to Iraq`s economic future, General John Batiste, commander of the US 1st Infantry Division, said he had plotted a "steady" rise in the volume of sabotage against the pipelines.
The US-backed interim government puts the cost of the attacks, which now number more than 300, at millions of dollars a day.
And oil officials warn that the implications are not just economic -- an attack against the wrong pipeline could spark a public health disaster.
One abortive sabotage attempt targeted a stretch of pipeline that carries 3,000 parts hydrogen sulphide to the million, said an official from the state-owned North Oil Company (NOC).
Death comes at 100 parts to the million, he added.
The US-led coaliton hired South African firm Erinys International in August 2003 to recruit 14,000 security guards to guard oil installations. The firm is now due to hand over day-to-day operations to Iraqi managers and the oil ministry by December.
But to beef up security, NOC has also paid thousands of dollars to tribal chiefs to recruit their own guards with next to no regulation.
It is a practice that US commanders and private security officials see as ineffective -- however one which the US military employed last year before discovering that some of the tribes it had hired were implicated in attacks.
No easy solutions exist for protecting the vast network.
"There`s no place you can go to say hey, I want your best security dudes to secure the refinery," said Major Stanley Moss, blaming the faulty security on nepotism and political patronage.
One NOC official said he gets up to 15 complaints a day over contracts being awarded to the wrong person amid fierce feuds over land rights.
Military and civilian officials suspect that some clans commit sabotage and finger rival tribes on erroneous criminal or insurgency charges.
"If this country wants to be successful, it needs to combat tribalism," said Lieutenant Colonel Kyle McClelland.
The 1st Infantry Division wants the oil ministry to take the bull by the horns over security and insists that neither coalition soldiers nor the Iraqi national guard have the time to protect pipelines in northern Iraq.
"Right now his priorities are probably elsewhere," said Batiste when pressed about the efforts being made by Oil Minister Thamer Abbas Ghadban, with most of the political elite in Baghdad turning their attention towards elections scheduled for January next year.
Despite the obvious importance of oil revenues to Iraq`s future, foreign advisors say the problem is still not receiving the single-minded attention that is necessary to get to grips with it.
"It needs real political power from the Iraqi government. They care, but there are a lot of power struggles as they rally around the top guy, you find this at every level," said one expatriate oil security official.
But although officials believe many of the attacks are carried out by outsiders, locals have been reluctant to come forward with intelligence.
"They`re afraid for their lives and rightly so. If you`ve got an insurgent group working in town and they know you`re the one who told on them, you`re as good as dead," said Captain Thomas Laflash.