Dirty Water, Bad Blood--Dahr Jamail on Bechtel's "great progress" in Iraq

[Aidoneus]

Dirty Water, Bad Blood
Dahr Jamail, February 18, 2004

Editor's note: Last month, Howard Dean was widely ridiculed for saying that the standard of living for the average Iraqi is "a whole lot worse now than it was before." He may be out of the race, but was he wrong? When GNN visited Iraq in October, we found contradictary evidence. For many Iraqis, the insecurity, violence and lack of basic services were worth the removal of Saddam. For others, the lack of clean water, for instance, is not just an inconvenience, it's making them sick. As this recent diary from freelance journalist Dahil Jamail shows contaminated drinking water is making life miserable for many Iraqis. But whose fault is it? Local officials blame Bechtel, the San Francisco-based company that has received more hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. reconstruction contracts. We asked Bechtel to respond to the allegations, and receieved a note from company spokesman Francis Canavan. Bechtel claims that they have a limited mandate and resources, and are working hard to rebuild a water treatment system that had been almost completely destroyed after two wars and more than a decade of sanctions. Canavan's response follows Jamial's piece:

Hilla, right near Babylon, has a water treatment plant and distribution center that is managed by Salmam Hassan Kadel, who is also the Chief Engineer. The wastewater project here, like in Najaf and Diwaniya, is specifically named on Bechtel’s contract as one that they are responsible for rehabilitating.

Mr. Kadel said that even during the war they had running water in every house, and just had the normal problems of needing to replace old pipes and pumps. Now, despite help from UNICEF, Red Cross and several NGOs, they are supplying 50% of the water they need for the people of Hilla. The villages have no water, and they don’t have the pipes they need to get the work done.

And they have had no contact from Bechtel, or any of its subcontractors. He says he's heard complaints of massive outbreaks of wholera, diarrhea, nausea, and kidney stones in his area.

According to Mr. Kadel, “Bechtel is spending all of their money without any studies. We give our NGO’s all of our information before they do the work, and they know what to do. Bechtel is painting buildings, but this doesn’t give clean water to the people who have died from drinking contaminated water. We ask of them that instead of painting buildings, they give us one water pump and we’ll use it to give water service to more people. We have had no change since the American’s came here. We know Bechtel is wasting money, but we can’t prove it.”

Just outside of Hilla I speak with several men of a small village. It’s the usual story- no running water, maybe 2-4 hours of electricity per day to run their feeble pumps to pull in contaminated water for them to use.

An old man, Hussin Hamsa Nagem, tells me, “This is just like Saddam’s time. In fact, it is worse. We have less water now than before. We are all sick with stomach problems and kidney stones. Our crops are dying.”

--snip--

http://www.guerrillanews.com/human_rights/doc3833.html

[Aidoneus]

1. kick for the late evening

:kick: