IRAQ: The Lights Have Gone Out, Who Cares

[reprehensor]

IRAQ: The Lights Have Gone Out, Who Cares

By Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail

BAQUBA, Feb 15 (IPS) - Lack of electricity in Baquba has shattered businesses, and the lives of families. Months of power failures has darkened morale everywhere.

In Diyala province, just north of Baghdad, a generation has grown up in dark. The province, and its capital Baquba 40 km north of Baghdad has lived with intermittent electricity supply since the times of the sanctions under Saddam Hussein in the 1990s. Came the U.S. in 2003, and everyone thought it would get better.

"I felt happy when the U.S. invaded Iraq because I thought the electricity problem will be solved, and we would have it all the time like other countries," Abdul-Kareem Hasan, a trader in Baquba told IPS.

But promises of reconstruction by western contractors proved empty, and there is now less electricity than during the sanctions.

Continued...
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41217

[Mike Nelson]

1. Bush will get right on it, I'm sure

He cares about the Iraqi people more than the New Orleans people

[Lasher]

2. Estimated prewar electricity availability was 16 to 24 hours in Baghdad.

Nationwide it averaged only 4 to 8 hours.

The Brookings Institution Iraq Index - scroll down to page 39.

For February 5-11, average hours of power via the electricity grid after meeting demand from essential services: Baghdad 8.0 and nationwide 10.7

US Department of State Iraq Weekly Status Report dated February 13, 2008 - scroll down to page 21.

[thecrow]

3. Okay Iraq is bombed "back into the stone age"

NOW can we leave?

[tuckessee]

4. I bet the occupiers have enough juice to run their toys back at base

plus have a little extra to zap the balls of hapless detainees.