From guest blogger Corinne Reilly, Merced Sun-Star
Iraq's scarcity of electricity is a telling, widespread problem, and journalists have written plenty about it. So it's surprising to me that it's surprising to my friends and family in the U.S. that power outages are still so common here.
I was talking to a friend in the states yesterday when the government power grid cut out. Thankfully, our bureau has a generator. It makes a loud grumbling sound when it kicks in. My friend heard the sound and asked what it was. When I explained the ongoing need for private generators here, she asked why the government isn't providing adequate power.
A lot of Iraqis are still asking the same question, and a lot of them still cite the outages as one of their top complaints about the government.
I'd estimate the power goes out at McClatchy's Baghdad bureau at least 10 times a day. Usually the generator kicks right in, so it's not a big deal.
But for Iraqis who can't afford generators, or the fuel to run them, it's a very big deal. The power outages aren't quick. Our generator will run for as long as the government grid is out, and sometimes it grumbles for hours.
And the situation now is far better than it will be in a few weeks when Iraqis start using their air conditioners to fight the summer heat.
"No one is looking forward to that," one of McClatchy's Iraqi reporters recently said to me. "It might seem like the electricity problem is getting better for Iraq. But it's not. It's just the season."
We're in year seven of "liberating" Iraq and they still don't have the electrical power generating and distributing capability they had before Bush/Cheney pushed us into this fiasco. This is progress?
Posted by: borisjimbo | April 22, 2009 at 02:28 AM
Iraqis have good reason to hate Americans, or at least to hate Americans who voted for George W. Bush, and that's half of the American public. (Of course, Americans who didn't vote for G.W. Bush also have good reason to hate the Americans who voted for him.)
Posted by: Eric | April 22, 2009 at 05:00 PM
Not So Fast Friends; The electric issues in Iraq aren't a Bush problem or an American problem, they're an Iraq problem. Saddam stopped investing in infrastructure after 1991, probably anticipating that he would eventually be dethroned. So the power issue predates the US invasion. In fact, US forces paid for the rebuilding of many antiquated and neglected Iraqi generating stations. In addition to an inadequate generating plant was the issue of insurgent attacks on power infrastructure coupled with growing demand on the part of the Iraqi's ie. more TV's satellite, dishes, refrigerators and air conditioners - consumer goods not generally available under Saddam. Lastly, Saddam took power from the outlying cities generating plants, Basrah, Nasryia etc and diverted the power to Baghdad to placate the population of the capitol, his power base and the largest city in the country while punishing the cities of the south. So before you think of this as a Bush or US issue, peel the onion on the situation under Saddam. You'll find that it stinks.
Posted by: rick coin | May 16, 2009 at 09:42 AM
"The electric issues in Iraq aren't a Bush problem or an American problem, they're an Iraq problem. Saddam stopped investing in infrastructure after 1991"
The infra structure was hit very effectively by Bush the father in what was called Desert Storm, and the electric power plants, although not in immaculate condition but in good enough condition to provide the whole country with electricity, were the first to be targeted. So if Saddam reasoning was to take what power was produced from the provincial power stations to pacify the capital in order to keep himself in power - What was the reasoning behind the U.S. destroying the power stations in the first place? Was it to make saddam mserable because he will be forced to spend sleepless nights in the heat?
I pose this question: Why did the U.S. target the power stations?
Posted by: Sahar IIS | July 17, 2009 at 10:43 AM