The Critical Battle for Iraq's Energy

Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, talks with a mechanic at the Dora oil refinery near Baghdad. Escalating sabotage of pipelines has significantly reduced Iraqi oil exports. (Khalid Mohammed -- Reuters Pool)

U.S. commanders say embittered supporters of the previous government make up most of the insurgency. But religious extremists -- including both Iraqis and foreigners, such as Osama bin Laden -- have called for attacks on Iraq's infrastructure to weaken the U.S.-supported interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Before the U.S. offensive on Fallujah in November, local insurgents vowed to shift their attacks to oil facilities.

"They say, 'You work for the Americans and Ayad Allawi, you don't work for the people's interest,' " Khalid Mohammed, 45, said from the cab of a state-owned tanker delivering gasoline to a service station on Baghdad's south side. "But we work for people. We bring it to the gas station where people can get it."

Mohammed brought his haul from a refinery in nearby Dora; the road to Baiji "is dangerous," he said. "The mujaheddin steal trucks."

In urgent tones, the trucker listed the hazards facing fuel transporters in Iraq: Insurgents had blown up a car bomb inside another refinery in the Sunni Triangle a month earlier, he said. Armed men blocked a road to a loading station in Latifiyah, a town in the "triangle of death" south of Baghdad.

"Many trucks that belong to the government were stolen," Mohammed said. "We're getting more shortages every day of both trucks and fuel."

This week, Allawi predicted that the situation would begin improving within days. His government was importing as much gas, diesel fuel, kerosene and other refined products as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other neighbors would sell -- and holding little back for reserves, government statistics showed.

Still, the Electricity Ministry reported four more power units shut down this week by fuel shortfalls, and outages increased again.

At a news conference Wednesday, Brig. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers explained that some of the power shortfalls were caused by the Iraqi government's decision to shut down some units for maintenance. The units had been neglected by Hussein's government. Scheduled maintenance reduced Iraq's power capacity from 6,000 megawatts to 5,000, he said. But another 1,400 megawatts were lost to "unscheduled maintenance," or breakdowns, and 600 more to insurgent attacks.

"They don't want to see a better life," Bostick said. "They don't like democracy. And the sad thing about it is they're attacking infrastructure."

But Iraqis said the problem was caused by constant over-promising, and that the interim government was reaping the political backlash for providing, less than three weeks from Iraq's first election in decades, half as much power as the country could produce.

"For almost two years we have been reading about so many megawatts have been added and so much will be added by next summer and so on," said Hayder Abbas, a college professor who lives in west Baghdad. "But in reality, the situation is exactly the opposite.

"With every setback in the electric power network, we are told it is the gas, or the crude oil or sabotage. But the fact is, electric power supplies are regressing, and the average citizen asks: When will the situation be normal again like in neighboring countries? Is this impossible? Why don't they tell us that? Then at least we won't hope for anything better."

Special correspondents Salih Saif Aldin in Baiji and Khalid Saffar in Baghdad contributed to this report.