Teribus-

You're right, of course. No interested party should be surprised by the dilapidated state of Iraq's oil industry. Given the 10 years of UN embargoes, war damages, skimming of profits by Saddam's elite, there was very little left to renovate or even maintain whatever was left of the system.

But the point I was making is if "oil" were one of the major reasons for our latest military adventure, remobilizing that resource will take major upfront investment and time which may be a surprise to the public. Of course, the costs would have been much higher if the oil fields had been more successfully sabotaged. In any event the current estimates will be much more modest and predictable than trying to locate and extract new oil reserves. It will be interesting to see what new agreement will be worked out between the Iraqi interim government and the international oil industry.

Charley Noble