I need some info about Utilities in Iraq

[Heddi]

How is the amount of power/water/etc. in Iraq NOW compared to the amt of power/water/etc in Iraq before the war?

I know I read in Time/Newsweek recently that nearly all infastructures except education are WORSE now than they were before the war started.

Can anyone help me out?

thanks!

[Robb]

1. Alexander's Gas and Oil

would be a good place to start. Here.

Search under electricity contracts in the Middle East section. Suprise! Iraq is importing much, much electricity from Iran.

But, you might say, weren't they making nuclear weapons? Nope, just more power demand because Iraq can't generate spit for power.

Very interesting resource.

[eissa]

2. I still can't call relatives there

Prior to the war, calling Baghdad was not a problem. Phone lines in many parts of the country are STILL down (I wonder how long we could go without phone service here?) making communication nearly impossible.

[TacticalPeek]

3. This site:

http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/
(scroll down to Dec 04)

has info and a link to a blog linking to graphs etc.

"Nasty surprise today in the morning. The guy who owns the electricity generator came
by to tell us that he has just raised the price of electricity from 2000 dinars to 3500
dinars per amp and if you don't like it go spend your days in darkness, oh and he is not
turning on the generator after 2am. tough luck insomniacs.
These neighbourhood generators are our main source of electricity since the baghdad
grid is really not reliable and has been getting worse, so generator owners are
twisting our arms now. and it is not like you can switch from one provider to another,
you are lucky if you have someone in your neighborhood who has a really big one and
decides to sell electricity. In some areas poeple saw ythais as a business oppertunity,
get a huge generator and make lots of money because on average you get more
electricity from them than from the national grid.
The reason behind the raise in prices is the price and availabity of fuel, and you can't
really argue with him. Everyone who owns a car has to either spend the night in his car
queuing up in front of a gas station or buy very expensive gas, which is probably cut
with anything from water to diesel, on the black market. The other thing is that
kerosene which is the fuel most iraqi homes use for heating is also getting more
expensive and harder to get. so these days whenver we hear the dingdingding of the
kerosene guy (it is a a barrel tank pulled by a horse thing) we start running out to
make sure he stops, and you have to be nice to Mr. Kerosene delivery otherwise he
will not come next time.
The extra containers we bought for fuel srorage during the war have been very usefull.

Just looked at Unqualified Offerings he has linked to lots of charts and numbers about
the electricity situation in Iraq."
:: salam 8:50 PM <+> ::
...

The "Unqualified Offerings" link is http://www.highclearing.com/archivesuo/week_2003_11_30.html#004754
(scroll down to Dec 02)


Salam's also a bunch of fussing about the census. Interesting.

[Robbien]

4. Riverbend in her BaghdadBurning blog

Said on Tuesday that "The electricity only returned a couple of hours ago. We've been without electricity for almost 72 hours- other areas have it worse. Today we heard the electricity won't be back to pre-war levels until the middle of next year."

She constantly talks about no electricity in her blog and how they cope without it.

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/