WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today highlighted previously released public documents on Iraqi oil markets that indicated deteriorating security conditions in the country long before the fall of Mosul to ISIS in June 2014.

“There were plenty of early warning signs that Iraq faced a deteriorating security situation years before the current collapse,” Murkowski said. “None of this is classified information and surely was being tracked by our national security folks.” 

The report, entitled Iraq through the Lens of Energy, was prepared by Murkowski’s Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee staff. It contains excerpts from official documents from the International Energy Agency (IEA), the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and the now-defunct Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR).  

Highlights include: 

• The Kurdish seizure of Kirkuk in June 2014 was foreshadowed by earlier events in 2013;
• The critical Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, Iraq’s principal export route to the north, was targeted by a wave of bombings in 2012 and 2013, and was knocked offline in March 2014;
• Key southern oil fields saw instability and violence – including pipeline attacks -- amid Shiite labor-related protests in late 2013;
• The Iraq-Jordan trucking route for oil exports was shut down because of militant activity in Anbar Province beginning in January 2014; and
• Discord between Baghdad and the Kurdish Regional Government intensified following the withdrawal by U.S. and U.K. forces in December 2011.

“These public records tell a story of oil infrastructure under attack, trade routes cut off, the Kurdish Regional Government maneuvering for greater independence, and security forces incapable of performing their core mission at critical moments,” the report states.

In September, Sen. Murkowski released a staff report about ISIS black market oil sales, suggesting that rising U.S. production could offset any supply losses if the Coalition chose to target ISIS oil.

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