An attack on Thursday left two fires burning on a pipeline to Turkey, near the key refinery town of Baiji, and local residents said Iraqis using explosives had attacked it.

The 965 km pipeline from the Kirkuk oil fields to Ceyhan had a capacity of 1.1 million barrels per day before the war, and has not yet resumed pumping oil.

Some Iraqis believe that the looting is deliberate sabotage by people still loyal to the Baath Party rule of Saddam Hussein. Whoever is behind the pilfering and destruction, they have compounded the problems built up over 12 years of United Nations sanctions.

Another moral dilemma is that the expertise needed to get the oil flowing again often resides with oilmen tainted by their past association with Saddam Hussein.

The interim oil minister, Thamir Ghadhban, and his American advisers are trying to purge the industry of senior Baathists. Yet neither the Americans nor the new minister has proposed a new structure for the industry, which might make it easier to argue that new people are needed.

For now, they are working the old state-run model under which the ministry oversees the two companies, North Oil and South Oil, and other agencies in charge of exploration, pipelines and other equipment and exports.