...Black Hawk helicopters await Shelby, Aviles and the soldiers escorting them on the tarmac at Contingency Operating Base Basra. They will fly the Red Bulls deputy commander, Brig. Gen. Gerald Lang from Sauk Rapids, Minn., as well as Shelby and Aviles over the Rumaila oil field -- a super giant.

Also along for the ride is Ian Sheridan, energy specialist for the Provincial Reconstruction Team of the U.S. State Department.


"I think it's somewhere around 7 to 10 billion barrels of proven reserves," said Sheridan.

As rich in oil as Iraq is, it has been poor at getting it out of the ground and to market. Now, British and Chinese oil companies say they will easily triple current production from 1 million barrels a day to 3 million.

China and England believe southern Iraq is now safe enough to make the investment. It is safe for development due largely to the Red Bulls. And Lang is an astute observer of Iraq's economic future.

He notices something else from the Black Hawk: gas flares down on the desert floor is Iraqi money going up in flames.

"The estimate from Shell Oil ... about $6 million a day that is being flared off," said the general.

"If you convert that into 40 gallons LP cylinder tanks, which a lot of people use here for cooking, that's about 330,000 of those 40-pound cylinders per day that are being flared off here and not being captured here for a number of different things, for generating electricity or for LP gas," he said.