Iraq's Marshes, Corporate Control, And Water

[RestoreGore]

Euphrates River

Why isn't Saddam Hussein on trial for this? For what Hussein did in diverting water from those who needed it simply to punish them politically was clearly a human rights abuse. However, we never hear of this from the "occupying force" there. Why not?

Iraq Marshes' Recovery In Doubt

The long-term recovery of the Iraq marshlands is in doubt because of uncertainties over water supplies to the wetlands, research suggests.

The first study to look at the marshes' recovery warned that increased water demand from farmers and cities could lead to only a portion being restored. Large areas were drained in the 1990s to punish the Marsh Arabs for rebelling against former leader Saddam Hussein.

The findings will be presented next week to the British Ecological Society. Curtis Richardson, from Duke University, North Carolina, US, who led the research, warned that the recent faster-than-expected pace of recovery was unlikely to continue in the long term.

"Our recent field studies have found a remarkable rate of native species re-establishment - of macroinvertebrates, macrophytes, fish and birds in re-flooded marshes.<strong> "But the future availability of water for restoration is in question because of increasing urban and agricultural demands for water in Iraq, as well as in Turkey, Syria and Iran, suggesting only a portion of the former marshes can be restored, " Professor Richardson observed.</strong>
End of excerpt.

Some history:
The Iraqi Government Assault On The Marsh Arabs/Human Rights Watch
~~~~~~~~~~~
Eden Again

An organization working to restore the Mesopotamian Marshlands.

Most of the Iraq water resources originate from outside Iraq where 88 percent of the natural runoff of the Euphrates comes from Turkey, 9 percent from Syria and the remainder from Iraq. As for the Tigris, 56 percent of its natural runoff comes from Turkey, 12 percent from Iran (especially for the two tributaries, lower Zab and Diyala rivers), while source of the remaining water is from within Iraq.

Information: Iraq Marshlands Restoration

The total length of the Tigris river is about 1900 kilometers, of which 1415 are located inside Iraq. The average annual runoff, recorded for many years at the Turkish borders, is about 16.8 billion cubic meters (BCM). Other tributaries flow into the Tigris inside Iraq’s territory, of which Khabor, Upper Zab, Lower Zab, Adhaim and Diyala are the most important. The average inflow of the Tigris River, both from inside and outside Iraq, is around 44 BCM.

Euphrates River

The total length of the river is 2940 kilometers, of which 1160 are situated inside Iraq. The average annual runoff of the river at the Turkish-Syrian border, before the building of the dams for irrigation projects in Turkey, was 30.4 BCM. The river has no tributaries inside Iraq.

Both the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are controlled by a series of dams and barrages. They were built to control the flood season where the inflow water exceeds the need for water in the country and to maintain reasonable water storage for summer when the requirements may exceed the inflow within the river and their tributaries. The annual distribution of the inflow of water resources in Iraq is as follows:

• February - June 7 percent


• July - October 10 percent


• November - January 15 percent


The two rivers and their tributaries are controlled by 25 dams and dikes in addition to 275 irrigation-pumping stations. Water released from the dams is justified mainly by the total requirements down stream. However, some water releases are adjusted according to the needs of hydropower generation.
~~~~
Ok, now that you know from whence the water comes, think about this.

Bechtel Corporation: Blood For Water/By Dr. Vandana Shiva


Why again if Iraq is a "Democratic" country receiving so much "aid" can the people of Iraq not have sovereignty over restoring this natural wonder, and why is water then so scarce for the people in this region? Why is US AID now involved in this "altruistic" effort all of a sudden pledging so much for it's restoration when people in Iraq still don't have electricity, and after we all sat watching this environmental disaster unfold without doing anything about it? Well, it is the same reason why countries like Iraq in the Middle East will continue to be targets in the 21st Century as was mentioned above:

The War For Iraq's Water

Water is vital to the production of oil as well; one barrel of water is required to produce one barrel of oil. Bechtel and Halliburton, who received a U.S. Army contract to rebuild the damaged oil industry which will likely reach $600 million, are the two most strategically-positioned corporations to control both the water and oil industries in Iraq.

Yet this ruse of generous reconstruction and concern seems both an unlikely and peculiar response after a less-than-philanthropic U.S.-led invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq. Supporters and opponents of the war alike could hardly miss its transparency. Whether the reasoning was because of oil, liberating the Iraqi people, ferreting out weapons of mass destruction or exerting regional influence, few pretenses were made to distance the war profiteers from the battlefield in the war's wake.

The actions of agencies like USAID, which has pledged more than a billion dollars to facilitate rebuilding infrastructure in Iraq which the U.S. military and policymakers had a large hand in destroying, are far from altruistic. The problem of the Marsh Arabs was not invented overnight at the end of the recent war, but rather has developed in plain view of the whole world via satellite images and documented in-country reports of displacement and abuse. Moreover, the marshlands are not Iraq's sole antiquity. Museums, regions and sites of archaeological importance were destroyed, bombed and looted not only during this last war, but also continuously since the first Gulf War. Will we be paying to rebuild those as well?

According to Peter Galbraith, a professor at the Naval War College, three weeks of ransacking post-war Baghdad left nearly every ministry in shambles, including the Irrigation Ministry, except for the Oil Ministry that was guarded by U.S. troops.13 The people of Iraq are becoming rapidly disenchanted with a prolonged U.S. presence in their country as their former disempowerment under Saddam is translated into present disempowerment under the Americans.

According to those working closely with the project to rehydrate the marshlands, in the newly "liberated" Iraq the silenced voices of the oppressed peoples can now be heard and addressed, the stories of destruction can be told and the much-needed healing of humans and terrain can take place. Whether this will actually happen is another story. At the Brookings Institution forum on the marshlands, no native Iraqis were represented, and the larger question arising in the post-war reconstruction of Iraq is what tangible legitimacy is given to voicing the will of the people by putting representative Iraqis in power.
End of excerpt.
~~~~~~~~~~~
They didn't go into Iraq just for the oil.... They went there to control the resource that is ultimately the most precious to the people there. Saddam Hussein may have drained the marshes in a blatant human rights abuse, but we are no better in our treatment of the resources in Iraq and the Middle East. The motivation is still the same, POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CONTROL, and it is a disgrace.

It's blood for water, blood for corruption, blood to keep the military/industrial complex humming. And instead of working to bring control of resources back to the people of Iraq with the sincere motivation of restoring all we destroyed, it is being privatized for profit. Seems Hussein and this government work very well together.


Shaking Hands: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein greets Donald Rumsfeld, then special envoy of President Ronald Reagan, in Baghdad on December 20, 1983.
Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein:
The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

General Reference on the growing water crisis in the Middle East:

Water In The Middle East

Water Is Life

[IChing]

1. Fresh water, worldwide is becoming a battle between

corporations and the people.

Nominated post, the issue of who controls your drinking supply is a worldwide and national battle.

[RestoreGore]

2. Yes, it is a global battle

Disappointing the Democratic Party doesn't seem to see the importance of it to our future.

[IChing]

4. The free trade deal is an open door

for corporations to come in to the abundance of the earth
and
leaving the people of the earth, standing outside praying
that
they share the same needs.

[RestoreGore]

6. I agree

Water is simply a commodity to them, just as humans are.

[Robbien]

3. What this doesn't mention is that the Tigris is acting as a dumping

ground for the Iraqi oil industry. The waste by-products use to be used by Saddam to manufacture asphalt. The US controlled Iraqi oil industry is dumping the waste by-products into the Tigris.

The BigCos of the world are treating rivers as sewers which will just make the worldwide developing water wars that much fearcer.

[RestoreGore]

5. Absolutely

Water scarcity isn't just the physical lack of water, it is the lack of potable water, and we are seeing that more and more from the Middle East which can't afford it as it is already in a severe situation, to China, Africa, and South America. This is a global crisis, but again, it doesn't appear to me that too many care about it as they should.

[Robbien]

7. People care but

this is not a highly charged topic to argue about. Everyone agrees.

The only new news is where the polution/privatization/water wars is happening this time.

There is a bit more discussion going on in these type of topics over in the environmental thread forums. Not much more but some.