NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, June 10, 2004

Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said saboteurs had set off 130 attacks on Iraqi oil pipelines in the last seven months and that more than $200 million had been "stolen out of the pockets," of Iraqis.

"These saboteurs are not freedom fighters. They are terrorists and foreign fighters opposed to our very survival as a free state," he said. "Anyone involved in these attacks is nothing more than a traitor to the cause of Iraq's freedom and the freedom of its people."

Allawi's comments follow a series of attacks against infrastructure targets attempting to shake public confidence as a new Iraqi government prepares to take power June 30.

In the most recent attack, saboteurs blew up a key northern oil pipeline on Wednesday, forcing a 10 percent cut on the national power grid as demand for electricity rises with the advent of Iraq's searing summer heat.

Coalition authorities have said that guaranteeing adequate electrical supplies are a benchmark of success in restoring normalcy, but the crumbling infrastructure and sabotage have hampered efforts to eliminate power cuts, especially in Baghdad.

"It is our people that are sitting in the dark because of these cowardly and traitorous attacks, not our occupiers," Allawi said.

© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Editor's note: