New York Times
The Struggle for Iraq: The New Looting
by JAMES GLANZ
28 May 2004
In Jordan's Scrapyards, Signs of a Looted Iraq
ABSTRACT - Sensitive military equipment, brand-new components for oil rigs and water plants and whole complexes of older buildings are being smuggled out of Iraq on flatbed trucks, even as United States spends billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq's civil and military infrastructure;
estimated 100 semitrailers loaded with what is billed as Iraqi scrap metal are streaming each day into Jordan, one of six countries sharing border with Iraq;
American officials claim sensitive equipment is closely monitored and much of rest leaving country is legitimate removal;
many experts disagree, saying much of what is going on amounts to vast looting operation;
International Atomic Energy Agency official Jacques Baute says satellite photographs of hundreds of military-industrial sites in Iraq show that entire buildings and complexes of buildings have been vanishing from photographs in past few months;
pieces of Iraqi metal bearing tags put in place by United Nations Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission during Saddam Hussein's rule have been spotted in Jordanian scrapyards;
recent examinations of Jordanian scrapyards turn up astounding quantity of scrap metal and new components from Iraq's civil infrastructure…
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