I guess the oil fields were insufficiently “liberated.”

Oil exports from southern Iraq have come to a complete halt because of attacks on pipelines and are not likely to resume for at least a week, a senior Iraqi oil official said Monday.

Oil flows out of the southern pipelines which account for 90 percent of Iraq’s exports ceased late Sunday, an official from South Oil Co. said on condition of anonymity.

“Oil exports from the port of Basra have completely stopped since last night,” said the official. He added that exports were not likely to resume for at least one week.

A stop in southern oil exports costs Iraq about $60 million a day in lost income at current global crude prices, said Walid Khadduri, an oil expert who is chief editor of the Cyprus-based Middle East Economic Survey.

I’m sure we’ll see side-by-side coverage of this along with the convention, right?

A.