After a failed effort by insurgents to blow up platforms for essential exports of crude, the Navy put personnel aboard the terminals. From a precarious catwalk 50 feet above the gulf, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Patrick Fulgham pointed to two large pipes protruding from the blue-green water below. “This is target No. 1 for terrorists,” Fulgham said. Ten months ago, four explosives-laden boats tried to blow up this oil facility and the nearby Khor al Amaya oil terminal, both about 20 miles offshore from the Iraqi port of Umm al Qasr. If the insurgents had succeeded, Iraq could have been dealt a serious economic blow and the oil spill might have rivaled the 1989 Exxon Valdez environmental disaster in Alaska, officials say. Full Story
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