"Detailed satellite photos show extent of ‘surgical’ attack damage to Saudi Aramco oil facilities" CNBC

"Satellite photos released by the U.S. government and DigitalGlobe reveal the surgical precision with which Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities were struck in attacks early Saturday.

The strikes, which unidentified U.S. officials have said involved at least 20 drones and several cruise missiles, forced Saudi Arabia to shut down half its oil production capacity, or 5.7 million barrels per day of crude — 5% of the world’s global daily oil production.

The images, first obtained by The Associated Press, show that at least 19 strikes were launched and 17 actually hit targets."  CNBC

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I get a big kick out of those of you who think someone faked this attack for, what;

An excuse to go to war with Iran?

An opening gambit to get the Iranians to talk to Trump at the UN?   If so, that did not work.  Khamenei has said unequivocally that they are not going to talk to the US.

Mikey Pompeo is now going to travel to Saudi Arabia to see if he can jawbone the Saudis into saying that it was undoubtedly the Iranians who done it.  Would that be going on if the Saudis had been in the plot?

So, some of you think that the Saudis blew up their own processing plant for some nefarious reason.

Or, maybe the Izzies blew it up to start a war?

Will wonders never cease?  I mean you, not the attack.  pl

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/17/satellite-photos-show-extent-of-damage-to-saudi-aramco-plants.html

Comments

[Aristophones]

Hurrah! Hurrah! I always cheer someone trying to tamp down the rampant paranoia and fantasy present in today's online community. Honest evidence-based discussion takes work but is worth the effort.

[Stephanie]

Point taken.

But the rush to proving that Iran "did it" makes about as much sense... even if they did.

The Saudi's have bought billions upon billions of air defense equipment from the U.S. For whatever reason it did not work.

Qatar (Centcom) and Bahrain (5th Fleet Headquarters) are about 100 miles from where these attacks took place. Whether they were aware of it or not, they didn't prevent it.

Iran has said again and again that if we attack them, they will interpret it as an act of war, and come back with everything they have.

So we are in a position in which we are potentially risking the lives of American service men and women for a foreign oil installation in a foreign country and maybe a 20 cent per gallon increase in the price of gasoline?

Wouldn't it be better to start thinking about defending major American cities from homemade drone/cruise missiles, perhaps by buying the Russian defense system at Khmeimim which has successfully resisted a dozen drone attacks?

[Norbert M Salamon]

Colonel:
the ones who could have caused [technical ability] the damage

1., Israel's Mossad - is not in their interest [too dangerous incase of war]
2., The Borg/deep state/CIA - promoting war vs Iran is there but the act is too dangerous
3.;, Iran and Proxies thereof in Iran/Iraq/Syria/Lebanon against their interest; Iran's military is primarily defensive
4., Russia/China not in their interest
5., Saudi - cutting their own throat/ I do not see how they could fake the damage with their technical ability.
6., Houtie, diplomacy by other means

from the probable shortfall of hydrocarbons, no one is really benefitting, as effects are primarily short term, and any major rise in price of oil [say 20/30 or more per barrel] is guaranteed to bring global depression [save possibly Russia as she is self-sufficient domestically in almost all respects] and financial collapse in West due to derivatives.

[turcopolier]

NMS

IMO the Houthis/ansarallah are tryin to win the war against SA.

[turcopolier]

Strephanie

The Saudi are laze and untrainable. they cannot defend themselves no matter how much equipment they buy.

[Eric Newhill]

The internet is full of silly conspiracy theories. It's always the CIA/evil US govt secretly killing and destroying to further their nefarious plans; from the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon on 9/11 to this attack on the Saudi Oil refinery. And it's usually a Brit/Australian/Canadian promoting the theory (occasionally a whacky American libertarian type or Leftist).

Hey. Maybe AOC, Al Gore and Bernie Sanders used their campaign finances to fund a team of former CIA paramilitary types to launch the attack so as to further the Green New Deal. I mean they have motive. Just connect the dots!

[JohnH]

Those pictures show a lot of storage tanks that are basically in tact. Where are the burn and scorch marks? And would the tanks simply melt down from the intense heat from a fire burning LNG?

The facilities in the lower left of the photo do show a lot of soot, but not the tanks.

[Norbert M Salamon]

Colonel with respect:
I was trying to reverse the meaning of the famous saying war is politics by other means. I know that the Houthis are trying win and END the are.

[turcopolier]

NMS
Keep trying.

[turcopolier]

JohnH

TTG and I discussed this. The Yemenis did it.

[Jack]

Sir

I’ll take your analysis and judgment any day.

The US government on the other hand is pushing the Iran did it story. After Iraq, Syria and Libya and Russia Collusion, I don’t get why anyone would trust our intelligence agencies. But as long is it conforms to the narrative they’ll get all the airplay.

In any case this would imply that the Houthis have qualitatively improved their offensive capabilities by now taking the fight deep into Saudi territory.

[anon]

Will wonders never cease,do bears sh*t in the woods,do camels do the harlem shuffle.yeah yeah yeah.wonder what happened to those russian nuclear missiles that just went kakakakaboom a few weeks ago.

[J]

Colonel,

This world is crazy, CRAZY. Reason I say that is that the 'former' Cigar-store-president John Bolton gets fired, and not 1 day, 1 day later has employment, self-employment. For Bolton it's SUPER PAC time. Bolton heads 2 PACs. His new HQ is just 4 blocks away from the White House. Bolton has a list of Senators he's helping in the 2020 elections. His first $10k will given to the 5 he says are committed to a safe national security policy -- Joe Heck, Tom Cotten, among others.

On another note, what to make of the SVR's inroads against the FBI CI. Move, counter-move.
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-hacked-fbi-to-prevent-tracking-russian-spies-us-report-2019-9

Back to the main subject. I agree with you and TTG regarding the Yemenis. Question is, will they win their war against SA in the end?

[Terence Gore]

I'm one of those whacky guys. Here is a short clip Architect & engineers for 911 Truth, 4 year study by University of Fairbanks Engineering dept into bldg 7 collapse at 5:20 pm on 9/11/2001. The government model is based on fires bringing down the building by thermal expansion of one beam walking off it's seat causing one column to lose it's integrity then progressive collapse of the whole building. A & E says all structural columns needed to lose their integrity at the same time to simulate what happened in the real world. The government story does not make sense to me. It looks like a controlled demolition but admittedly my opinion is not a scientific one.

https://www.ae911truth.org/wtc7

[different clue]

Why would the Houthis care about a global depression? What would they lose in a global depression? Their near-subsistence mountain lifestyle?

Maybe as-well-as trying to win the war with KSA by direct means, the Houthis also think that those in the West who do have something to lose from a global great depression might force the KSA to give up the fight before KSA drives the Houthis into enough attacks on KSA's fragile brittle "steel-tube spiderweb" of pipelines and stuff that a global depression might occur.

Since the Houthis have nothing to fear from a global depression and possibly something to gain from elevating the West's fear of a global depression.

[MP98]

I met a Brit who had been a civilian contract trainer to the Saudi AF.
He said they were hopeless.
Covered up a wing crack with grease and said "inshallah" God willing.

[elkern]

My pet theory, which I don't take seriously: inside job (KSA), related to MBS's recent firing of prior Aramco CEO. I don't have a real good story for it; maybe, revenge for the firing, and/or torpedoing the planned Aramco IPO.

No real evidence, of course. But it fits a few observations:

- early reports indicated big hit; prices spiked, but dropped back down today
- spectacular fires were extinguished amazingly quickly
- Aramco says Zero injuries!?
- public pix show holes but very little fire damage
- big smoke plumes, but all coming from places outside the plants?

It's a cute little theory, but I agree with Col Lang & TTG - the Yemenis did it (and I'm rooting for them).

[JamesT]

Are we to understand, Colonel, that you and TTG believe all of the drones/missiles came from Yemen and that none came from Iraq or Iran? I've seen reports that the attack consisted of drones and cruise missiles, and that the drones came from Yemen and the missiles came from Iraq (or according to some reports, Iran).

[walrus]

1. when gas burns it doesn’t leave soot.
2. The steel won’t melt.

[turcopolier]

TTG can speaak for himself. I think it all came from Yemen but I doubt that the neocons and company will admit that.

[turcopolier]

walrus

Thanks

[JohnH]

Here's what a storage tank looked like after a fire in S. Korea … nothing like those shown so far in Saudi Arabia, which are entirely intact, except for possible puncture holes.
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2018/10/281_256601.html

[doug]

Ah, but they are the perfect customer. Buys a lot of expensive stuff and minimal ability to use it.

Another issues is analyzing why the attack wasn't discovered until the smoke rose.

Assuming there are numerous audio recording devices around the Kingdom, it shouldn't be all that hard collect a large sample, sync the clocks and adjust for timing variations/drift, and get a pretty good idea what the route was. Certainly there are also radar logs that can be examined closely too.

[turcopolier]

Doug

Unless the Saudis shut down the air defense stuff.

[The Twisted Genius]

Yes, I say Yemen carried out this attack just as they said they did in their news conference. We have film of their missile/cruise missile/drone capabilities. The limited damage inflicted on the SA complex seems to be in line with those capabilities, although most of the BDA is conjecture. We have little data to draw any real conclusions. They certainly didn't devastate the target, but they inflicted enough damage to shock the bejeezus out of the Royals and the rest of the world. It shouldn't have come as a complete shock. The Houthis have launched a number of drone/missile attacks on distant targets before this. I'm sure they'll launch more in the future.

Another point on BDA. We did a detailed target analysis of the Everett LNG terminal in Boston including tours and interviews with the operators. Then we kayaked across the bay and up the Mystic River to hit the target as a training exercise. We learned LNG is not very flammable. Don't expect a lot of catastrophic explosions and fireballs. The critical points to hit were not at all spectacular. Keep this in mind if and when we learn more about what damage was actually done in this strike.