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Show HINCKLEY JOURNAL OF POLITICS SPRING 2001 if it has a pre-established connection with the vessel in question, (i.e. the company who owns the vessel is based in that country). Thus, the U.S. must then first look for any association between a ship and a possible divert state. Approximately eighty percent of the time, that country is the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which provides a level of cooperation to the UN force that has proven essential to its operation. However, the fact that a majority of the vessels possess a connection to the UAE is a major reason why this country is willing to accept such a large number of diverts. Once the ship is diverted to the UAE, the oil is offloaded and sold, and the vessel is auctioned off - often back to the original owner at a fraction of its worth. This additional expense is then simply factored into the smugglers' cost of doing business, as is the Iranian payoff discussed earlier. This is what has become known as the UAE's "revolving door" among government personnel involved in MIF operations. In fact, many ship owners, upon learning their vessel will be diverted, immediately will identify themselves to the UN as the vessel's owners. This allows them to speed the process along, thus helping them to more quickly buy back their vessel and return it to smuggling. Unfortunately, the UAE does not typically seek out and punish in a criminal court those who are financing these illegal activities. Such actions could be a significant deterrent to the businessmen involved in the smuggling operations, as the cost of engaging in this business suddenly could be much higher. However, while the UN and U.S. may encourage such enforcement actions, all that is required under the UN resolution is that the oil be offloaded, sold, and the profits be deposited in a UN account. Any further action is left to the host country. Moreover, the U.S. is reluctant to apply too much diplomatic pressure on the UAE over this issue, for fear that it may then retaliate by refusing to accept diverted vessels, thus causing enormous problems for the MIF. This delicate situation with the UAE facilitates the smuggling process by keeping costs of interception at a relatively low level. Few countries other than the UAE are willing to accept more than a few diverted vessels. The processing of a smuggling vessel does impose some burden on the accepting country and many Gulf states feel that they already sufficiently contribute to the sanctions regime. Kuwait refuses to accept any diverted vessel with Iraqi citizens among the crew. The approval process in Saudi Arabia to accept a vessel typically takes so long that the MIF very rarely requests ships be diverted there. Oman will occasionally accept a vessel, as will Bahrain if pressed (though as Bahrain is the headquarters for the U.S. Fifth Fleet and the MIF, the U.S. is unlikely to press them). This forces the MIF to rely heavily on the UAE to accept diverts. If more of the Gulf States were willing to accept vessels on a regular basis, the reliance on the UAE would be lessened, thus opening the door to the possibility of applying more pressure on other gulf states to close their "revolving door." Furthermore, recent discussions within the State Department and U.S. Navy have raised the possibility of expanding the list of countries to which vessels may be diverted. Unfortunately for the MIF, the smugglers have also developed new tactics and strategies that hinder MIF effectiveness. One increasingly common tactic used by smugglers is the blending of the illegal Iraqi oil with that of Iranian or another country's oil in an attempt to mask its origin from any lab tests. While the oil analysis process developed by U.S. scientists is sophisticated enough to recognize this and identify the origins of the different components, it does significantly complicate and slow a process already long and complicated. Moreover, if another country performs an analysis using its own methods (which are not comparable in sophistication to the U.S. tests), the blending is likely to cause inaccurate or indeterminate results. This may create political difficulties when the oil in question is owned by a certain company or is aboard a vessel of a certain flag. For example, a large Russian flagged tanker, the Academik Pustovoyt, was recently intercepted in the Gulf. United States analysis determined the oil to be a mixture of Iranian and illegal Iraqi oil (United Nations Noon Briefing Highlights 2000). In this case, there was other evidence available before the oil analysis was done, but since the Royal Dutch Shell oil company owned the cargo and the tanker was Russian, it was felt that these tests needed to be performed in hopes of mitigating possible political difficulties. Initially, Shell disputed the results of the tests, claiming that oil analysis could not pinpoint its origin. This contentious issue was finally settled after numerous meetings, some of them at relatively high levels, and Shell agreed to deposit two million dollars into the UN account (United Nations Noon Briefing Highlights 2000). While awaiting the outcome of the dispute, MIF vessels detained the Academik Pustovoyt in the Gulf. While U.S. scientists produced conclusive results about the oil's origin the smugglers' tactics caused valuable MIF resources to be diverted to detain a single vessel. The sheer volume of smuggling makes such a diversion of resources an increasingly significant concern. As previously noted, vessels from the U.S. carrier battle group in the Gulf comprise the large majority of MIF operational forces, along with a few British ships. Performing Maritime Interception Operations (MIOs) are only one of several duties that this group must perform, and often they must gauge the opportunity costs of engaging in one task over another. Furthermore, as oil prices continue to rise, the number of smugglers is also likely to rise as the profit incentive increases. Yet the number of UN naval assets remains constant; thus the MIF is being asked to do more with an identical force structure. Clearly, the MIF is faced with numerous difficulties that greatly hinder its effectiveness. While MIOs have put a dent in smuggling operations over the past decade, those operations have been by no measure shut down. In December 1999, Leonodas Drollas of the Center for Global Energy Studies estimated that Iraq pulls in between 300-400 million dollars from illegally smuggled oil every year (MacVicar 1999). With subsequent rises in oil prices, and increased 29 |