This paper by Gal Luft, Co-Director, Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), published in 2004, pints out that before the war there was a near consensus that the country's oil industry, boasting the second-largest proven reserves in the world, would provide most, if not all, of the funds needed for reconstruction. But a year after the fall of Saddam Hussein, and in spite of the fact that the war caused negligible damage to the country's infrastructure (only ten wells were set afire), the prospects that Iraq will soon become one of the world's leading oil-producing countries are growing dim. This shortfall points up a crucial but neglected aspect of the broader security failure in Iraq: the failure to secure Iraq's oil infrastructure against insurgent attack. Looters and saboteurs are common landscape near the pipelines.
The author proposes alternatives on how to fight this 'oil terrorism.'