Power Grid In Iraq Far From Fixed - New Government Inherits Huge Task

[Barrett808]

Power Grid In Iraq Far From Fixed
New Government Inherits Huge Task
By Caryle Murphy and Bassam Sebti
Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD -- When his lights and television go dark, as they regularly do, Khalid Qasim Ali flips a switch in his living room to bring back the power. This electricity is not state-supplied. Instead, it comes from a generator three blocks away that is connected to Ali's home by a wire strung in the air.

All told, 107 families in Baghdad's working-class neighborhood of Topchi are hooked up to the generator. The arrangement gives them power during the long blackouts that are routine in Iraq. It also darkens the skies over Topchi with a tangled skein of unsightly, dangerous cables. Like everyone else, Ali is billed by the ampere. He pays the generator's owner around $10 a month.

"We should enjoy electricity without using a generator because Iraq is a wealthy country," said Ali, a 65-year-old retired truck driver. "Regretfully, the Americans did nothing since they came."

Thousands of roaring generators in Iraqi back yards, driveways and street corners demonstrate that after two years and at least $1.2 billion, the U.S. effort to resuscitate Iraq's electrical system is still very wide of its mark. In fact, the national grid's average daily output of 4,000-4,200 megawatts falls below its prewar level of about 4,400 megawatts.

(more)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/30/AR2005043001121.html

[dArKeR]

1. What? The Repukes said Iraq was back to normal more than 1.4 years

ago. And all schools were open with all children attending!

[dbt]

2. Quick, somebody tell me again how the Iraqis are better off now

than they were under Saddam. Be convincing.

[Roland99]

3. Easy.

Because they are free.

[thebigidea]

5. hard to be free during a military occupation with curfews and checkpoints

[Roland99]

10. Bah...that's just a small price to pay for: FREE-DOM!

[Barrett808]

9. Why do you hate freedom? n/t

[sattahipdeep]

4. "voracious opportunist with voracious ambitions," Bremer

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=14966

Marsh & McLennan....

http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2004/oct/oct14a_04.html

[ECH1969]

6. The US power grid in my area has enough problems

as it is.

[Jacobin]

7. But ShockNAwe(tm) had nothing to do with it, so

stop saying that.

15,000 plus attacks on coalition troops from July 2005 through March 2005....can't imagine why

[Javaman]

8. New T-Shirt in Iraq...

American invaded and all I got was a lousy Honda generator...