Militias Seizing Control of Grid, Starving Baghdad of Electricity

[RamboLiberal]

Source: NY Times

Armed groups increasingly control the antiquated switching stations that channel electricity around Iraq, the electricity minister said Wednesday.

That is dividing the national grid into fiefs that, he said, often refuse to share electricity generated locally with Baghdad and other power-starved areas in the center of Iraq.

The development adds to existing electricity problems in Baghdad, which has been struggling to provide power for more than a few hours a day because insurgents regularly blow up the towers that carry power lines into the city.

The government lost the ability to control the grid centrally after the American-led invasion in 2003, when looters destroyed electrical dispatch centers, the minister, Karim Wahid, said in a news briefing attended also by United States military officials.

The briefing had been intended, in part, to highlight successes in the American-financed reconstruction program here.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/world/middleeast/23electricity.html?hp

[babylonsister]

1. Time to go. Way past time. Please. nt

[wtmusic]

2. Who knows what hell Baghdadis have to endure

notice they're never interviewed anymore in MSM?

[keopeli]

3. You mean the "surge" didn't protect the electric grid? They're just doing neighborhood patrols? n/t

[Trillo]

4. Sounds like a metaphor of the evolution of our own grid,

and it's ownership.

Perhaps these militias will decide to sell electricity to those who would pay for it.

[Vinca]

5. Given the location of Iraq, maybe we should start handing out

solar panels to whatever homes are left.

[MiniMe]

6. Good thing that the massive US Embassy has its own power supply

:sarcasm:

[annabanana]

7. Another thing in the "no one could have predicted" file...

That file is pretty damn stuffed...

[4dsc]

8. Where's the surge?? n/t..