Iraq water minister: $15 billion in repairs needed

[sabra]

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http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/06/28/iraq.water.reut/

Iraq water minister: $15 billion in repairs needed
Baghdad, other cities struggle with shattered water system

Tuesday, June 28, 2005 Posted: 1739 GMT (0139 HKT)

AMMAN, Jordan (Reuters) -- Iraq, the land of two rivers that once irrigated the world's earliest civilizations, needs up to $15 billion to repair a dilapidated water system crippled by war and neglect, the country's water minister said Tuesday.

More than two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the country of the Euphrates and the Tigris is struggling with recurrent water shortages in Baghdad and other large cities, poor sanitation and a shattered irrigation network.

Water Resources Minister Latif Rashid said guerrillas intent on undermining the new government are much to blame for the current water crisis and said pledged reconstruction money has been slow to materialize.

"Iraq is a country rich in water resources. We have large reservoirs, two large rivers, a large number of river branches, adequate ground water, the marshland area," Rashid told Reuters on the sidelines of a reconstruction conference in Amman.

"What Iraq needs is large investments."

Rashid said the bill for repairing and building dams, irrigation canals, sewage systems and purification stations for drinking water amounts to "something between $10-15 billion."


Iraqis pour water during a demonstration Sunday in Baghdad to call attention to water shortages.
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[JuniperLea]

1. is that the amount

quoted by halliburton for the job?

[saigon68]

7. US Seniors need Prescription Drugs

"You OLD PEOPLE are lazy scum", bellowed the CHIMPANZEE "You should have worked hard and saved more like me and Dick Cheney", he continued.

"We are God's chosen few, You old slackers are worthless"

[barbaraann]

2. Gee, Bechtel might be available!

n/t

[bullimiami]

3. thats what i was thinking ... so if its 15B in Halliburton dollars

how much is that if we pay locals to do the job?

Probably 1/10 or less. Say 1B. which is a fraction of the money that walked off in duffle bags under proconsul bremer.

[Gunit_Sangh]

5. Pay locals? Are you crazy?

Don't you know there's a WAR on terra going on? You're a traitor for even suggesting that someone other than our all american, true red-white-and-blue company get the no-bid cost-plus contract to rebuild Iraq's water system.

</sarcasm>

Probably cost about $1 million if locals do it.

Shortly after the war I remember reading about a bridge that needed to be repairs. A local expert on bridges (over 20 years experience) estimated about $500,000 to fix it -- Haliburton over $55 million (that may not be the exact number but it was many orders of magnitude above what the Iraqi estimated).

[TahitiNut]

4. I hear the hoof-beats of privateers. (The whore's men of the apocalypso.)

Iraq is a nation of 25 million people with abundant water and oil natural resources. The 'privatization' of their oil resources has impoverished the rightful beneficiaries of those resources. Where there should be more than enough capital available to build the Cadillac of public infrastructure for water and sewage, they're threatened with death and illness if they don't turn it over to privateers.

It's appalling!

[Roland99]

6. And how long until Iraq is stable enough to allow this to begin?