Can anyone explain to me why we haven't built a power plant

[napi21]

or several of them in Iraq in all this time being there? I atched Rachel's show tonight,an I feel so bad 7 guilty for having nvaded Iraq and are now leaving them with what appears to be alost total destructon. They talked about having electricity for sometimes 2 to 3 hours a day, but not all at one time. It comesin 10 minies here, 5 mins. there, maybe as long as 15 mins at a time! When it oes come n, it comes in a surge and blows out any appliance you may have and almost burned down a guy's huse that they interviewed because the surge started a fire in the walls. I don't know anything about building power plants, but I can't believe it's THAT difficult. Hell, they wouldn't even have to worry about EPA regs or getting thelatest great technology, just something that produces power for most of the countr, or at least the highly populated parts. We've cetanly spent enough $ theehat none can tell me it would have cost too much!!!!

Does anyone on DU have any idea why we didn't?

[krispos42]

1. What in our Iraq policy has given you the impression...

...that we want Iraqis to be happy, healthy, content, safe, and stable?


If they had no power.... they would adapt to that. If they had power all they time... they would adapt to that. The only way to fuck with them is what's happening right now!

[napi21]

2. I guess I'm not as pessimistic as you are. I agree that I think Shrub went in there for

the oil AND to try to outshine his daddy, but in can't believe even Shrub had any reason to try to completely destroy the Iraui people. It's such a very sad story.

[krispos42]

4. He simply didn't care

After all, there are still 90% of Iraqis alive, right? So they have that going for them.



The civil war kept the grid from working too well. Various militias stole the electricity and/or operated their own diesel generators for the neighborhoods. And with massive unemployment, how will they be able to buy the power in the first place! How do you wire up a shanty in a slum for electricity?


I'll bet the free-marketers looked at the potential demand for electricity, and, finding civil war, extreme poverty, and high unemployment, said "hell, no" and walked away.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Actually those are the kinds of conditions they love

and wiring a shanty town is not that hard... just be careful of the live wires.

All jokes aside, one reason this hasn't happened is that the grid is heavily degraded. But they are actually producing more electricity\hour. If you do not have the grid though that goes away.

Also they have another problem and she alluded to it, but it was also beyond her, since this is well beyond normal American experience. You got a bunch of oligarchs, who have electricity, working at the IZ looking at the data. They have not gone and walked among the people. You also have a layer of technocrats (The Americans Engel referred to) who are fixed with how many kilowatt\hour we produce. This is a damn deadly, yet common combination in developing countries.

So if you think you are producing such number, unless you walk among those customers, you really do not get it. Dime on the dollar, or whatever the coin is in Iraq these days, that neither Nouri Al Maliki or General Odierno have gone down to Abu Ghraib, not the jail, the shanty around it, and talked to the people.

I've seen this, in a far less deadly combination with the Mayor of Tijuana. I got into it with him suggesting he come with me to one of the Ciudades perdidas on my rig, to ahem talk to the people. Funny, he never took me on it. And he was a well trained, University of Chicago Masters, technocrat.

[tkmorris]

7. Well no, but the invasion itself pretty much wrecked the infrastructure

After that it was a matter not so much of wanting the Iraqis to suffer as much as there was no compelling reason to spend money to fix anything. Bush simply didn't care if they had power (or anything else for that matter) and it would not appear that much has improved in the last year and a half either. "Winning hearts and minds" has been part of our lexicon for something like 50 years now but it still seems that our military brass and the civilians who send them to such places believe that beating em down and keeping them weak is a better long term strategy. It's all quite mad of course but when has that ever mattered?

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. It is not just the power plant

but the electrical distribution lines. The distribution system, from what the cameras showed, was very degraded. That will happen with violence and lack of maintenance. This is what is part of the problem.

The infrastructure, not just the grid, is falling apart.

At one point, don't know if this is still the case, they didn't have something as silly as double zero surgical sutures. Oh and forget about the NICU unit.

I know that will make sense to you by the way.

[napi21]

6. Medical care IS important, but 1st things 1st! I doubtthey had much

in the line of sterile s75 year, but without electricity you can't even begin to think about that kind of thing.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Before the war, even with all the sanctions

Iraq had a pretty descent medical system. Their doctors were amongst the best trained in the Middle East. That is another thing that will take at least a generation to more or less fix.

And yes, they are back to boiling gear on an open fire on a good day... or using the autoclave when they get a generator in so they can actually do that.

[sandnsea]

5. We did

Lots of info on various Iraq power plants, some newly built.

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=iraq+power+plants&rlz=1R2ADFA_enUS354&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=ad526d12389e3c08

I didn't watch so I don't know where Rachel was. I also think there is NO excuse for everyone in Iraq to not have electricty. It's absurd. Our "nation building" policy ought to be this simple: When Mama's Happy, Everybody's Happy. Yes, even in country's where women have no voice.

Anyways, part of the problem several years ago is that we built power plants in areas that Saddam had traditionally ignored. So the people who were accustomed to power, suddenly didn't have it because it was being shared with people who had been relegated to poverty for decades. I could accept that explanation for about 2 years. It shouldn't be that way anymore. But I do wonder if some of these old animosities are still affecting who gets what and when.

[napi21]

9. She was in Bagdad. If you are interested, her show can be played

at www.msnbc.com/rachel

She was in Bagdad, where I would have thought electricity wouldn't be a problem. She even said when she first arrived there and was set up in military housing she was told don't take a shower at night, always wait until morning. When she asked why, she said the "cold" water will scald you! The water tanks are outside in the sun and it gets extremely hot during the day (they expected 125 degrees that day) and it cools off somewhat at night.

I felt guilty for what Shrub did in our name beore watching that show, but now I feel MUCH WORSE!

[sandnsea]

12. Remember Saddam City which became Sadr City?

Yeah, the Sunni parts of Baghdad were very modern, fully developed, all utilities. But Saddam City, the Shia area, was shacks and horrible poverty. So we attacked the Sunni part, put our money into the Shia part, and left it all at about 30% of what it should be. As far as I can tell.

[Axle_techie]

11. it would probably just get blown up?

[napi21]

13. Of for god sake. What an attitude! I don't think they ever tried! The damn new

embassy we built there "could have been blown up" TOO, but they built it didn't they!

[Axle_techie]

15. The embassy has a constant guard, and is usually staffed

by americans, or locals that have been exhaustively vetted. A terrorist attack on it would have to be very well coordinated and large scale, and the intel ops would most likely get some wind of an attack coming on that scale. all it would take for a power plant is a single convert and a powerful suicide bomb.

I am not saying we shouldn't try, but the effort would be likely to fail.

[JDPriestly]

14. Maybe the insurgents wouldn't let us do it. Is that possibly a reason?

It seems like a no-brainer, but I think that there are serious problems in Iraq with big projects like that being destroyed by dissidents or insurgents.

[pitohui]

16. gosh maybe there was a war on?

i'm obv. in the minority here but i have never agreed w. the policy of while we're fighting a war and invading someone that we should be building stuff up so we have more to shoot down, all that does is make $$$ for defense contractors

i didn't support the invasion but once we invade these folks fuck no we're not there to build fucking power plants it's a war

if we're going to fight both sides in a war i would prefer we do it as a game of "pong" or online poker or something cheap...

iraq is not our friend, we invaded them, we conquered them, and it's going to take some time for them to get there shit together afterward...what part of WAR do you not grok?

it would actually be worse if i thought i was paying my taxes to build crap to shoot down...which is what we do every day in afghanistan...

show some stability for 10 years then i'll be ready to support building up, but right now there are too many terrorists/suicide bombers...there's still a war on, and i don't believe in building stuff up to aid the enemy and the contractor