More progress in Iraq: Crisis as no water in Baghdad in over a day;Sunnis quit govert

[Thorgrim]

BAGHDAD - Much of the Iraqi capital was without running water Thursday and had been for at least 24 hours, compounding the urban misery in a war zone and the blistering heat at the height of the Baghdad summer.

Residents and city officials said large sections in the west of the capital had been virtually dry for six days because the already strained electricity grid cannot provide sufficient power to run water purification and pumping stations.

Jamil Hussein, a 52-year-old retired army officer who lives in northeast Baghdad, said his house has been without water for two weeks, except for two hours at night. He says the water that does flow smells and is unclean.

Two of his children have severe diarrhea that the doctor attributed to drinking what tap water was available, even after it was boiled.

"We'll have to continue drinking it, because we don't have money to buy bottled water," he said.

Adel al-Ardawi, a spokesman for the Baghdad city government, said that even with sufficient electricity "it would take 24 hours for the water mains to refill so we can begin pumping to residents. And even then the water won't be clean for a time. We just don't have the electricity or fuel for our generators to keep the system flowing."

Noah Miller, spokesman for the U.S. reconstruction program in Baghdad, said that water treatment plants were working "as far as we know."

Water taps run dry in Baghdad - Yahoo! News

At the US going "looks fine to me!"

---------------

BAGHDAD — Iraq's main Sunni Arab political bloc withdrew from the government Wednesday, blaming Shiite Muslim leaders for not addressing sectarian issues, as explosions in the streets killed at least 70 people around Baghdad.

Six Cabinet members with the Iraqi Accordance Front, Tawafiq in Arabic, had suspended participation in the government in June and threatened last week to pull out permanently. The Sunni bloc took the action after its demands that Sunni detainees be released and that Shiite militias be addressed were not met.

The pullout reduces Iraq's Shiite-dominated government to little more than caretaker status. Barring a major political realignment, it also makes it less likely that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's regime will be able to reach significant compromises on legislative benchmarks sought by the Bush administration to help quell sectarian strife.

Tawafiq member Tariq Hashimi retains his post as one of Iraq's vice presidents.

The bloc's pullout cast the gravest challenge yet to Maliki's tenure as prime minister. His government has been burdened for months by talk of conspiracies, most prominently featuring former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi

Sunni bloc bolts Iraqi Cabinet - Los Angeles Times

Wow, things are going just GREAT, things are getting better and better...victory is at hand!

[kinggovernor]

nice anecdote

[Thorgrim]

The entire city being officially without water is not anecdotal

And the Sunni bloc leaving the government and destroying what was left of the unity government...the Iraqis looking at possibly a new PM...(who would be even more pro-Sadr) is not anecdotal

[Donkey®]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

nice anecdote

Sorry, this doesn't seem very trivial to me.

[thatguyoverthere]

What, is "anecdotal" the new "lies?" Somehow, labeling something as "anecdotal" now makes something untrue and unworthy of attention?

As Thorgrim stated above, these are facts, not just anecdotes passed down from a friend to a friend of a friend.

The values of the people who claim to support the "party of personal responsibility" never fail to nauseate me with their blatant hypocracy.

Four years after our invasion, and not only are things not better, they're deteriorating. These are the poor innocent Iraqis that we were saving from the woodchippers and rape rooms, that we were bestowing God's precious gift of liberty upon... and now they don't have any running water, and whatever water does run is unfit to drink?

If this war was going well, war supporters would be crowing and posting article after article every day of the way Iraq is getting better. Since it's getting worse, war supporters deserve to have articles like these shoved in their faces day after day. This is the poisoned fruit of your war of choice. This is where our taxpayer dollars are going.

[SoFlaJDM]

why do they only give us the bad news what about the schoolhouses they are building? what about the army battalions they are training?

[WickedLou9]

Those poor bastards only have power for one hour a day. I gurantee you if we spent more resources on restoring water and electricity that the US troops would be heros and violence would drop. People respect you when you get things done. If you go in there and get the power on and water flowing, you are a hero.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by SoFlaJDM

why do they only give us the bad news what about the schoolhouses they are building? what about the army battalions they are training?

results matter. We trained 11 batallions... so what? show me results.

[Thorgrim]

Well at least they gave up the dumb stories every 2 months about how many schools they built...i was getting so sick of that...after 3 years of that shit I was expect most if Iraq to comprised of desert and schools

[thatguyoverthere]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

Well at least they gave up the dumb stories every 2 months about how many schools they built...i was getting so sick of that...after 3 years of that shit I was expect most if Iraq to comprised of desert and schools

lol! Very true!

[SoFlaJDM]

UPDATE

BC-ME-GEN--Iraq, 4th Ld-Writethru

2007-08-04 19:42:41 -

BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq's electricity grid could collapse any day because of insurgent sabotage, rising demand, fuel shortages and provincial officials who are unplugging local power stations from the national system, electricity officials said on Saturday.
U.S. President George W. Bush, meanwhile, was busy on the phone, calling Vice president Adel Abdel-Mahdi and President Jalal Talabani, urging political unity in the country, where the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is under a stiff challenge.
Abdel-Mahdi, a Shiite, and Talabani, a Kurd, provided few details of the conversations in statements released by their offices. But both men have been involved in trying to solve a government crisis after Iraq's largest bloc of Sunni political parties ordered its ministers to quit the government.
For many Iraqi citizens, however, trying to stay cool or find sufficient drinking water was a more urgent problem. The Baghdad water supply already has been severely affected by power blackouts and cuts that have affected pumping and filtration stations.
And now water mains have gone dry in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, where the whole province south of Baghdad has been without power for three days. Power supplies in Baghdad have been sporadic all summer and now are down to just a few hours a day, if that.
«We no longer need to television documentaries about the stone age. We are actually living in it. We are in constant danger because of the filthy water and rotten food we are having,» said Hazim Obeid, who sells clothing at a stall in the Karbala market.
Aziz al-Shimari, the Electricity Ministry spokesman in Baghdad, said power generation nationally was only half of demand and that there had been four nationwide blackouts over the past two days.
«Many southern provinces, such as Basra, Diwaniyah, Nassiriyah, Babil have disconnected their power plants from the national grid. Northern provinces, including Kurdistan, are doing the same,» al-Shimari said.
He complained that the central government was unable to do anything about that or the fact that some provinces were failing to take themselves off the supply grid once they had consumed their daily ration of electricity.
Najaf province spokesman Ahmed Deibel confirmed to The Associated Press Sunday that the gas turbine generator there was removed from the national grid. He said the plant produced 50 megawatts while the province needed at least 200.
«What we produce is not enough even for us. We disconnected it from the national grid three days ago because the people in Baghdad were getting too much, leaving little electricity for Najaf,» he said.
Which confirmed al-Shimari's charge that «we have absolutely no control over some areas in the south.
The conflict over electricity is a perennial problem in Iraq, which ironically sits atop one of the world's largest crude oil reserves. The system became decrepit under Saddam Hussein whose regime was under a U.N. sanctions regime after the Gulf War and had trouble buying spare parts or the equipment to upgrade the system.
Al-Shimari said the electricity shortages now were the worst since the summer of 2003, shortly after the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam.
«And what makes Baghdad the worst place in the country is that most of the lines leading into the capital have been destroyed. That is compounded by the fact that Baghdad has limited generating capacity.
He said that there are 17 high-tension lines running into Baghdad but only two were operational. The rest had been sabotaged.
«When we fix a line, the insurgents attack it the next day,» al-Shimari said.
In Karbala, provincial spokesman Ghalib al-Daami said a 50 megawatt power station there was shut down for lack of fuel and the whole province had been without water and electricity for past three days.
He said almost half the provincial capital had sewage seeping above ground because pump trucks to clean septic tanks were unable to operate for lack of gasoline. The health threat to citizens was also contaminating crops in the region.
Many people who normally would rely on small home generators can't afford to buy fuel. Gasoline has shot up to nearly $5 a gallon Karbala residents say, a price that puts the fuel out of range for all but the wealthy.
The cost of living in Karbala is less than half that in Baghdad, but wages are equally low. A taxi driver in Karbala can bring in nearly $9 a day, while the same job in Baghdad, on average, earns a driver about $30 daily.
The lack of electricity is particularly accute at this time of year when average daily temperatures reach between 110 and 120 Fahrenheit (43 and 49 Celsius).
«We wait for the sunset to enjoy some coolness,» said Qassim Hussein, a 31-year-old day laborer in Karbala. «The people are fed-up. There is no water, no electricity, there is nothing, but death. I've even had more trouble with my wife these last three days. Everybody is on edge.
Elsewhere, the U.S. military announced the death of a Marine during combat Thursday in Iraq's western Anbar province. That brings to at least 3,664 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died in Iraq since the war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians.
The U.S. force also issued a statement saying its forces killed four suspects and captured 33 others Saturday in raids in northern Iraq and along the Tigris River Valley.
And details emerged Saturday about the killing of five brothers kidnapped earlier in the week by gunmen in the northern city of Kirkuk. The five men were painters and were seized as they were on their way to paint a police station in the Rashad area, about 45 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, said Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir said.
Police found a small boy _ the men's younger brother _ alive near the bodies. The boy, who was unhurt, apparently was brought along to help his brothers, Qadir said.
The boy's father said his sons were killed after he could not pay a ransom of US$100,000.
«If you don't have money, you must come and take their dead bodies (from the morgue),» Mahmoud Wakaa al-Jibouri said the captors told him by telephone.
He and his family had fled from Mosul only months ago to settle in Kirkuk, believing it was safer.
«I will kill myself. I have no meaning in life after you,» al-Jibouri cried, standing at the gate of a morgue awaiting his sons' bodies. He kissed each of them before their coffins were closed.
Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad, has faced rising ethnic tensions as Arabs and ethnic Turks oppose Kurdish efforts to incorporate the oil-rich city into their nearby autonomous zone.
AP writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.


sure sounds like some progress to me

[Thorgrim]

so water breaks down in like 130 degree weather for big chunks of a city of millions, kids are getting sick from what they are forced to drinks, electricity is headed in the direction of going offline, sectarian deaths are up last month to the highest point, even higher than before the surge, Coalition deaths are staying at the surge ultra-high average of 90, the parliament is in recess and has done nothing beforehand...

Sunnis are saying as soon as Al Qaeda isn't a significant presence in their lands, they're going after the Shia to murder them, the Shia are saying they're going to more seriously arm their militias to prepare for war against our Sunni allies, the Kurds are saying there will be a "real civil war" if Kirkuk isn't decided soon, and oh yeah Turkey might invade

Who wants to bet all of this gets let out or is glanced over by Gen. GOP-Minion's report?

[SoFlaJDM]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

so water breaks down in like 130 degree weather for big chunks of a city of millions, kids are getting sick from what they are forced to drinks, electricity is headed in the direction of going offline, sectarian deaths are up last month to the highest point, even higher than before the surge, Coalition deaths are staying at the surge ultra-high average of 90, the parliament is in recess and has done nothing beforehand...

but what about the good news?