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Oil prices climbed Monday, driven by a pair of worries on the supply front driven by unrest in Libya and Iraq.

West Texas Intermediate crude futures for January delivery US:CLF20 rose 59 cents, or 1%, to $59.17 a barrel. There will be no regular trading or settlements in New York for oil to mark the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Brent oil, the international benchmark, is trading as normal. March Brent oil futures BRNH20, -1.27% climbed 65 cents, or 1%, to $65.50 a barrel.

The largest oil field in Libya shut down production after armed forces cut off a pipeline and blocked exports. Production of 1.2 million bpd (barrels a day) has been completely crippled after forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar closed a pipeline. About 800k bpd of that figure has been taken out, although it could be higher, said Neil Wilson, chief market analyst for Markets.com, said in a note to clients.

Meanwhile, security guards striking forced the stoppage of work on an oil field in Iraq.

This outage comes amid rising fears that general unrest in Iraq, OPEC number two producer, could intensify and trigger a more widespread supply disruption even more so if the protesters set sight on the oil fields, said Stephen Innes, chief Asia market strategist at AxiTrader.

But he said prices will likely remain capped, given the markets reactive nature to fade geopolitical risk quickly. And Wilson added that any spare capacity is likely to be taken up by other Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries members.

Global leaders gathering in Berlin on Sunday agreed to respect an arms embargo in Libya in a bid to force the warring sides to a full cease-fire. The country has been descending further into chaos since longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi was ousted and killed in 2011.

Oil futures ended with a modest gain on Friday, but registered a loss for a second week in a row skidding 0.9% as traders continued to weigh the prospects for energy demand in the wake of the China-U.S. trade deal and Senate approval of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade pact this week.

Brent also experienced the second straight week of declines, dipping 0.2%. Baker Hughes BKR, -0.22% reported Friday that the number of active U.S. oil rigs rose by 14 to 673 this week. That followed declines in each of the past three weeks.

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Oil prices climb after production halt in Libya and Iraq unrest fears - MarketWatch

Navy Lt. Jonny Kim went viral last week when NASA announced that he and 10 other candidates (including six other service members) became the newest members of the agency's hallowed astronaut corps. A decorated Navy SEAL and graduate of Harvard Medical School, Kim in particular seems to have a penchant for achieving people's childhood dreams.

However, Kim shared with Task & Purpose that his motivation for living life the way he has stems not so much from starry-eyed ambition, but from the pain and loss he suffered both on the battlefields of Iraq and from childhood instability while growing up in Los Angeles. Kim tells his story in the following Q&A, which was lightly edited for length and clarity:

Task & Purpose: What made you go for the Navy SEALs rather than Special Forces or Marine Force Recon or something like that?

Jonny Kim: The military for me was never in the picture. My parents wanted me to go to college and get a well-paying job from there, but there's something inside of me that knew I just wasn't ready for that and I didn't want to do that. And I wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself.

I was in martial arts class when I was 16 years old and my friend Keith, who I went to Santa Monica High School with, told me his life goal was to be a Navy SEAL. I'm trying to set the scene that this was 1999, before 9/11, before anyone knew what a Navy SEAL was.

When I listened to Keith talk about this passion, this dream, it was so inspiring to me: a group of warriors that worked in the night that had the hardest military training, and did these operations that no one else would or could do. The most important part of it was that they never sought recognition or advertised the nature of their work. And it was so profound, that level of humility, and professionalism, that I knew that that's what I wanted to do.

I had heard about the Special Forces and I didn't really know much about Marine Recon but there was something that enamored me about the training to be a SEAL, and about Hell Week and all these grueling tasks that I felt that I needed to do.

And a lot of it was for my own selfish needs, like I needed to discover myself and my identity. I didn't really know who I was, and I didn't really like the kind of person that I was growing up to become. And I thought that this was a drastic move for me to kind of reset my life, to reorient what I wanted to do or what I thought I could.

T&P: I can relate to that lack of confidence and wanting to forge your own identity. Can you tell me more about that lack of confidence, was it kind of like a shyness or an insecurity type of thing?

I mean, I don't know how appropriate it is for me to go into detail, but I didn't I didn't have the most stable childhood. And I think a lot of my insecurity and my inability to talk to people and form close relationships stemmed from just childhood instability. That's a large reason why I didn't have big dreams growing up. I didn't have that type of healthy confidence or security, and also maybe this kind of inner frustration that I know I can do something I just, I just need to believe in myself. And I didn't have that.

For me, becoming a SEAL, it was the biggest reset.

T&P: Just to make sure I'm following you are you talking about not having many resources growing up, and feeling like you didn't have many options because of that?

Certainly not financial resources. We were middle class; it would be inaccurate to say that I came from a poor household. But the familial relationships we had in the home were a little unstable. And I think that led to a lot of low confidence growing up.

I'm naturally a pretty private person. But I understand that ... I almost owe it to the next generation of children. One of the biggest reasons why I wanted to be an astronaut was I wanted to be able to inspire young kids.

I feel I owe a duty that I am a little bit more open about where I came from. Because I want young kids to understand that they're capable of achieving their hopes and dreams even if they didn't come from the best place.

T&P: When you decided to become a SEAL, was combat something that you looked forward to? I don't mean that pejoratively, I know that's part of the deal, but was combat something you looked forward to, and how did the actual experience of it measure up to what you imagined it would be?

I don't think I've ever been asked that. I think it's a very profound and astute question. Yes, I think as a naive 18-year-old kid, when I first joined the Navy, I had these grand dreams of going to combat and expecting it to be a certain way, maybe influenced by what I had seen in Hollywood movies or read in books.

But war was not anything that I thought it would be. And it was ugly. And it was painful. And there was a lot of suffering.

And I did find a lot of good out of it. There were some of the most compassionate acts that I've ever seen of love for your fellow man and woman. It gave me a perspective that I don't think I would have achieved any other way. This perspective of the ugliness, but at the same time the beauty of humanity gave me a lot of hope that we can make this world into a better place.

A lot of my inspirations, really all of my inspirations for wanting to do good things in my lifetime, to contribute something positive to the world, were born on the battlefield. I would have to say all of it was.

I mean, I miss my friends dearly that I'll never see again. But I wouldn't trade these experiences for anything.

T&P: I'm new to covering the military beat, and I'm surprised that could be taken away from the battlefield experience, like after seeing all that ugliness and wanting to do something profoundly helpful for people in the world.

Is it okay if i share a story with you?

T&P: Sure, I was about to ask for one, go right ahead.

I think one of the greatest acts of love that a human can show for another is to sacrifice themselves for the life of another and that happened many times. One time that was profound for me, was a young man named Michael Monsoor, who was operating on a combat mission in Ramadi, on September 29, 2006.

A grenade was thrown into his general area and he was the only person among his teammates that could have escaped the blast without harm. But instead, he jumped on a grenade, smothered it completely with his body, absorbing all the impact and died from that last act. And he didn't have much time to make that decision.

I would like to think that I would do the same thing if I was in the same position, but I don't think anyone knows, until they are thrust into that position, what they would do. I know Mike was scared. I know he didn't want to die. But I am so inspired that the love he had for his fellow teammates was greater than his fear of death. And to me, that is an inspiring act that has stayed with me.

There's not too many places I've seen that act of love for someone else.

T&P: You deployed to Iraq twice, and it sounds like they were incredibly difficult deployments to Ramadi and Sadr City How did that path lead you to become an officer and move on to medical school?

I was the combat medic of my platoon and I had the fortunate opportunity to treat my fellow platoon mates, civilians and sometimes the enemy. But there was a limit to what I could do to help people. I was trained to stabilize patients long enough for them to reach a hospital and be treated by a physician, a surgeon, as the definitive care. And I was inspired a lot by the physicians that I worked with. I know a lot of my friends owe their lives to those doctors and their medical staff.

I made promises to a lot of the people that I lost, that I would spend the rest of my life doing something good, something positive for the world, because they left a void when they died, and I know that they would have been successful, making the world a better place had they lived. Those are big shoes for me to fill. At that point in time, I felt medicine was a good platform to spread that goodness, to leave that positive contribution.

T&P: I imagine it must have been a sharp pivot to go from the SEALs, this very intense fraternity, and then go into a civilian setting like Harvard Medical School.was that a difficult transition for you?

It was. It was probably one of the more difficult things for me. It's a different set of tools you need to be successful in the SEAL teams versus in a civilian institution. As much as I like to think of myself as a grounded person with a wide perspective, I had narrow experiences up until that time.

At the age of 18 after high school, I joined the military and I was indoctrinated into that lifestyle. And I learned so much from it. But in a way, I hadn't seen the rest of the world. In a way, I had a unique set of life experiences that no one else, that the majority of people in this world would never, ever experience.

But that is a bubble in itself a little bit, right? So getting outside of that comfort zone, going to a civilian institution and interacting with people of various experiences, some people who were just 18 going to college. That was, that didn't come naturally to me. I had to learn how to do that. And it's hard to find similar experiences, especially if you've had extreme set of experiences in a wartime environment.

And you layer all that with I don't say that I had post traumatic stress disorder. You can call it whatever you want. But the truth is, I was angry after the war.

I had a lot of traumatic experiences. A lot of veterans deal with these traumatic experiences in their own way. And for me, a lot of it was anger that not necessarily directed at any one person or anything, but just having that anger inside and, and trying to try to have a healthy way to to cope with it, cope with all that trauma and all that loss I had.

All the while I'm trying to fulfill my obligations as an officer candidate and work a part time job and also my son was born at that time. It was really one of the hardest transitions in my life ... but I became a lot stronger for it, in a different way.

I don't think strength is purely defined as physical strength or your ability to endure immense amounts of pain or mental trauma. I think strength comes in various forms. And one of them is learning to adapt, and be honest with yourself and be vulnerable. That was one of the hardest things for me is learning to be vulnerable and open up to others.

Because that wasn't something that I really learned in the SEAL teams.

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I made promises to the people that I lost How the Iraq war forged a Navy SEALs path to Harvard Medical School and NASA - Task & Purpose

BAGHDAD (AP) A push led by pro-Iran factions to oust U.S. troops from Iraq following the U.S. airstrike that killed a top Iranian general is gaining momentum, bolstered by a Parliament vote calling on the government to remove them.

But the path forward is unclear, and in Iraqs deeply divided terrain, with a resigned prime minister and raging proxy war between Iran and the U.S., ending Americas 17-year military presence in Iraq is a risky undertaking.

Iraq was barely starting to recover from a devastating four-year war against the Islamic State group when a mass uprising against the countrys ruling elite erupted on Oct. 1, forcing the resignation of Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi two months later. He hasnt been replaced.

A pullout of U.S. troops could cripple the fight against Islamic State militants and allow the extremists to make a comeback. Militants affiliated with IS routinely carry out attacks in northern and western Iraq, hiding out in rugged desert and mountainous areas. Iraqi forces rely on the U.S. for logistics and weapons in pursuing them.

An American withdrawal could also enable Iran to deepen its influence in Iraq, which like Iran is a majority Shiite country.

It is not that simple, Lebanese political analyst Ibrahim Bayram said of any withdrawal. This will increase the complications inside Iraq, the conflicts and contradictions ... and the clash, both political and non-political, between the Iranians and Americans.

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, meanwhile, said Monday the United States has made no decision whatsoever to leave Iraq, adding that the U.S. remains committed to the campaign to defeat the Islamic State group in Iraq and the region.

The Iraqi parliamentary vote Sunday calling for the ouster of the 5,200 American troops in Iraq requires Iraqi government approval. But it highlights the sharp deterioration in relations between Washington and Baghdad amid soaring tensions between the U.S. and Iran following the U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani at Baghdad airport .

American forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011 but returned in 2014 at the invitation of the government to help battle the Islamic State group. The extremists had seized vast areas in the north and west of the country after Iraqs armed forces collapsed, including the second-largest city, Mosul. A U.S.-led coalition provided crucial air support as Iraqi forces, including Iran-backed militias, regrouped and drove IS out in a costly three-year campaign.

Unlike the previous U.S. deployment, which was governed by the Status of Forces agreement that clearly spelled out the rules of termination, American troops in Iraq are now in the country based on a less formal request by the then prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.

Pressure has been escalating for a U.S. troop withdrawal since the defeat of IS in 2017, particularly among factions loyal to Iran. But calls for their removal grew louder amid outrage over the U.S. strike last week that killed Soleimani along with senior Iraqi militia leaders.

Abdul-Mahdi asked parliament on Sunday to take urgent measures to ensure the removal of foreign forces from the country. In a sign of the divisions, the parliament session was boycotted by many Sunni and Kurdish legislators who oppose abolishing the deal with the Americans, and most of the lawmakers who voted were Shiite.

It was not clear what steps Abdul-Mahdi would take following the parliamentary vote. Experts were split on whether, as a resigned prime minister, he has the authority to request the termination of the U.S. presence.

Thafer al-Aani, a Sunni lawmaker, said Abdul-Mahdi doesnt want to risk aggravating the Americans too much by acting alone, which is why he turned to Parliament for backing, adding that the vote was mostly for a domestic audience.

He feels that America isolated his government by siding with the protesters. ... He decided to side completely with the Iranians after the killing of Soleimani and because of the U.S. position toward the protests, he said.

The U.S. government repeatedly called on the Iraqi government to stop using excessive force on peaceful protesters. Nearly 500 people were killed by security forces in three months of protests against the countrys top political and religious leaders. The protests have also turned into a revolt by the countrys Shiites against Iranian influence in the country, with protesters burning Iranian interests in the southern provinces.

On Monday, Abdul-Mahdi met with U.S. Ambassador Matthew H. Tueller and stressed the need for the two countries to work together to execute the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq, according to a statement from his office.

In their meeting, Abdul-Mahdi said relations with Washington must be built on a sound basis. He didnt elaborate, but said the situation in Iraq was critical and that all efforts were being exerted to prevent sliding towards an open war.

Speaking in Washington, Esper said the U.S. was not pulling troops out of Iraq.

Theres no decision to leave, nor did we issue any plans to leave or prepare to leave, the defense secretary said. He spoke to reporters in response to a letter from a senior U.S. commander that seemed to suggest a withdrawal was underway.

The Iraqi parliament vote angered President Donald Trump, who promptly warned Iraq that he would levy punishing sanctions if the government expelled American troops. He said the U.S. wouldnt leave without being paid for its military investments in Iraq over the years

We will charge them sanctions like theyve never seen before, ever. Itll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame, Trump said.

The alarming rhetoric by the two allied nations comes amid a recent series of unclaimed attacks targeting military bases that host U.S. troops in Iraq. One attack killed an American contractor in Kirkuk late last year, and was blamed on an Iran-backed militia. That attack sparked a deadly U.S. airstrike targeting that militia, which in turn led to a New Years Eve assault by militias loyal to Iran on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Abbas Kadhim, head of the Washington-based Atlantic Councils Iraq Initiative, said because Abdul-Mahdi has resigned as prime minister, he didnt want to give the impression that he was acting unilaterally and wanted Parliament to be on board, although he has the right to approve the U.S. troop removal himself.

He said there was no reason the Americans should stay now that the mission to defeat IS is over.

The troops are there and its called the coalition to defeat ISIS not the coalition to re-occupy Iraq, Kadhim said. ISIS was defeated and they have no reason to be there now. Kadhim added that an agreement could be worked out whereby some U.S. trainers can stay behind.

Bayram, the Lebanese analyst, said, however, that Trumps reaction shows that the Americans have no intention of exiting smoothly from Iraq.

The United States considers its presence in Iraq fundamental, especially since it rid Iraq in 2003 from Saddam Hussein. America also considers itself an essential partner in Iraq, he said.

___

Karam reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers A.J. Naddaff in Beirut and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.

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Push to oust US troops from Iraq a risky undertaking

The reality on the streets, where antigovernment protests have swelled, with calls for an end to Irans influence, was something else, though, as fear of what may come outweighed any jubilation over the killing of General Suleimani.

Faiq al-Shakhe, a member of Parliament, said the demonstrators showed, no signs of happiness or celebration. Instead, he said, they were worried about a violent response from Iran-aligned militias, who have already killed many protesters and may now, more than ever, see them as agents of the United States.

It was a wrong act from America because America should have coordinated with the Iraqi government, said Ameer Abbas, a protester, who shared the widespread view that the American attack was a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.

Another protester, Mustafa Nader, said, we are all against foreign interventions, whether from Iran, Saudi Arabia or the United States. We do not have a personal problem with Iran, but if America were to intervene at the same level as Iran, you will see as much objection as there has been against Iran, and maybe stronger.

Emma Sky, a former adviser to American forces in Iraq and a senior fellow at Yale, said the American-Iraqi relationship is going to be really damaged by the killing. I think there will be more calls for the U.S. to withdraw troops, she said.

She said Americans will be hard pressed to justify a continued presence in Iraq because of the perception that its objectives are not aimed at promoting a stable Iraq, but containing Iran.

The U.S. doesnt have a policy on Iraq, she said. It has a policy on Iran.

While Iraqs Parliament is sure to take up the issue of the American troop presence, few expect the government to actually expel the Americans. Many Iraqi leaders still view an American presence as vital to its security, and depend on American training of the Iraqi security forces and, for better or worse, as a counterweight to Iranian influence.

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A Shocked Iraq Reconsiders Its Relationship With the U.S. - The New York Times

Hussein, it turned out, did not have an active WMD program, but was hoping to keep Iran, his regimes longtime foe, guessing as to whether he did have one as a deterrent.

During questioning, Biden mocked Ritter as ol Scotty boy and suggested that his demands that the international community compel Iraq to cooperate with inspectors if met, would give Ritter the unilateral authority to start a war in Iraq. Biden argued that such decisions belonged to higher-level officials. I respectfully suggest they have a responsibility slightly above your pay grade, to decide whether or not to take the nation to war, Biden said. Thats a real tough decision. Thats why they get paid the big bucks. Thats why they get the limos and you dont. I mean this sincerely, Im not trying to be flip.

He ended by redeploying his unusual idiom in thanking Ritter. The reason why Im glad you did what you did: We should come to our milk. We should make a decision, Biden said.

Bidens earlier suggestion that taking Saddam down was the only way to guarantee an end to the WMD program left little doubt where Biden would later come down on the issue.

Bidens grilling of Ritter is important because it gives context to claims Biden later made: First, that when he voted in favor of the invasion of Iraq as a senator, he did not mean to vote for war, but hoped the resolution would empower inspectors to get back into Iraq and monitor the program. And second, that he never believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

On the first claim, Biden told NPR last year that former President George W. Bush looked me in the eye in the Oval Office. He said he needed the vote to be able to get inspectors into Iraq to determine whether or not Saddam Hussein was engaged in dealing with a nuclear program. He got them in and before you know it, we had shock and awe.

But according to Bidens own statements in 1998, he believed that Hussein could never be trusted to eliminate his program, no matter how many inspectors were admitted.

In October 2004, by which time it had become clear there were no WMDs, Biden told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations, I never believed they had weapons of mass destruction.

In fact, as Biden had said in 1998, he believed not only that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but no amount of inspections or diplomacy could guarantee their removal. That, he told Ritter, could only be done by guys like you in uniform to be back on foot in the desert taking this son of a taking Saddam down.

Bidens thought process puts critical hearings he held in 2002 as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee in sharper context. That summer, as the world was focused on the war in Afghanistan, from where the attacks of September 11, 2001, had been launched, Biden sought to begin a national dialogue on Iraq. During a series of high-profile hearings, he feigned neutrality, but his earlier questioning of Ritter leaves no doubt where he stood: Iraq had WMDs, and the only way to disarm Iraq with confidence was to depose Saddam Hussein. Biden, given his chairmanship, was a leading voice on foreign policy within the party. He had voted against the first Gulf War, waged by Bushs father, and wasnt considered a knee-jerk hawk. His support for the 2003 war made Democratic opposition ultimately untenable even as Ritter, in the run up to it, loudly made the case against war, arguing that the WMD claims were overhyped.

Biden had reason to disbelieve the WMD claims. In a classified hearing on September 24, 2002, at the urging of a staff member, Biden asked then-CIA Director George Tenet what evidence of WMDs the U.S. had technically collected.

None, Senator, Tenet said, according to an account in the book Hubris, by Michael Isikoff and David Corn. Biden, wondering if there was some highly classified evidence, asked Tenet, George, do you want me to clear the staff out of the room? Tenet told him no. Theres no reason to, Senator.

None, Senator that answer will ring in my ears as long as I live, the staffer later told the authors. Later in that same hearing, Biden heard from two government witnesses who rejected the aluminum tubes claim that had been circulating, and would later become a centerpiece of Secretary of State Colin Powells presentation to the United Nations.

Biden, to be sure, was not a full-throated advocate for the war on Bushs terms, and throughout the fall, worked with Republican Sens. Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel to try to build support for a narrower authorization, that would only allow Bush to attack Iraq for the purpose of dismantling a WMD program. But the effort was undercut by House Democratic leaders, and particularly Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., who pushed ahead with Bushs broader resolution. I was angry, Biden later said, according to Hubris. I was frustrated. But I never second-guess another mans political judgment.

Biden was also aware of the difficulty of invading and occupying Iraq, unlike some of his Republican colleagues. In February 1998, the News Journal of Wilmington reported that Biden saw invasion as unlikely.

Though some Republicans have urged the military to remove Saddam from power entirely, Biden said there was little will for that in Congress. Such a move would require a bloody ground war, the use of 300,000 to 500,000 ground troops, and some kind of continuing presence in Iraq while a new government is installed, he said.

Yet during the summer 2002 hearings, Biden claimed that one thing is clear, these weapons must be dislodged from Saddam Hussein, or Saddam Hussein must be dislodged from power. Given that he was already on record believing that the weapons could never effectively be dislodged from Saddam Hussein, that left only one option: war. Biden voted for the Iraq war resolution on October 11, 2002, three weeks after hearing from Tenet in the classified session.

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Joe Biden Was Talking Up War With Iraq Years Before Invasion - The Intercept