Brig. Gen. Robert Crear has returned to full-time command of the Corps of Engineers’ Southwest Division. During his tenure in Iraq, oil production rose from nothing to more than 2 million bbl per day. Col. Emmett DuBose, his deputy, has temporarily replaced him as Task Force RIO commander.
CREAR

Contractor deaths from attacks have temporarily halted at least two Iraq reconstruction operations. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Kellogg Brown and Root suspended oil-industry restoration efforts in northern Iraq for three days after a KBR engineer was killed Nov. 29. In a separate action, Washington Group International halted work after two subcontractor employees were killed in a Nov. 30 ambush.

Task Force RIO (Restore Iraqi Oil) stopped work after an attack on a convoy near Kirkuk killed a KBR engineer, says Mike Mcaleer, Corps spokesman. The incident followed an attack on the North Oil Co. building, injuring four KBR personnel.

"We are still in a security clampdown," says Mcaleer. "We are in the process of moving from the North Oil Co. building to the Kirkuk airbase…(and) reassessing the security situation." He admits the attacks are slowing efforts to restore northern oil production to the prewar national level of 3.0 million barrels per day.

Brig. Gen. Robert Crear, who led Task Force RIO for eight months before returning home in mid-November, calls the suspension a standard response to the attack to assess the security situation. He says he is "very satisfied" with the progress of the work, which has resulted in sustained production of 2 million to 2.2 million bbl per day.

But frequent sabotage has closed the 40-in., 600-mile crude-oil export pipeline from Kirkuk to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. "We will not open the pipeline until there is better security," says a senior Oil Ministry official, who requested anonymity.

On Dec. 1, Washington Group International, Boise, announced it had suspended work on construction of towers for 40 miles of electric-transmission lines north of Baghdad after two engineers working for WGI subcontractor Omu Electric, Seoul, Korea, were killed in an ambush on the job near Samarra.

"We are having to stand down on that job until we are convinced we can protect our employees and those of our subcontractors," says WGI spokesman Jack Herrmann. The job is part of a $110-million task order from the Corps to support repairs to the electrical infrastructure in northern Iraq. Herrmann emphasizes that this power line project is the only Iraq job WGI is suspending. "Our other jobs in Iraq are in powerplants, hospitals and the like, where we can control the perimeter," he says.