“To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs.” G.W. Bush Jan. 10 2007. Address to the Union speech.

Lies, corruption, lies.

Water taps run dry during the peak of Baghdad summer heat

STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer

August 2, 2007 11:30 AM

BAGHDAD (AP) – 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.

Baghdad routinely suffers from periodic water outages, but this one is described by residents as one of the most extended and widespread in recent memory. The problem highlights the larger difficulties in a capital beset by violence, crumbling infrastructure, rampant crime and too little electricity to keep cool in the sweltering weather more than four years after the U.S.-led invasion.

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.”

http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=WORLD&ID=565062429059712736

Did the Green Zone have water? Bottled or otherwise?

This is what genocide looks like.

And I bet that the water and electric utilities have been “privatized” as per Naomi Klein’s article

Woe is Baghdad.
Trapped.
Alone.
Parched.

Pray for Rain For The Iraqis, That God Took Pity When Man Would Not and Shame the Ones Who are Doing this Horror to the Iraqis and all of Us.

Comment by Jackie — August 5, 2007 @ 7:54 pm

Yep.

Comment by muckdog — August 5, 2007 @ 6:04 pm

Nope.

You have no idea what you’re talking about. Unfortunately, that’s par for you – ignorance.

Comment by muckdog — August 5, 2007 @ 2:06 pm

Truly dishonest and meaningless statement. Gray Davis did not cause the California Energy Crisis. It was an enormously complicated mess that began under the Wilson Admin and got progressively worse. In the end it was pretty much proven that major energy suppliers such as Enron gamed the market and defrauded Californians of BILLIONS of dollars.

Remember the “Grandma Millie” comments?

If you’re going to post comments, pls try to make sure they’re somewhat factual.

If this invasion and occupation has killed one million Iraqis, made four million refugees, made Iraq the second-worst failed state in the world, opened up the country to terrorists, caused one in eight Iraqi children to die before the age of five, caused 45% unemployment, destroyed clean water, destroyed healthcare, destroyed the power grid, and caused people to wait in line 14 hours for gas—-so be it!!! We don’t care! We went there to control that part of the world. If our puppets won’t do it for us, then we must leave the troops there.

Just like giving out $ 50,000 luxury cars to the poor – they can’t afford the gas, oil, maintenance, upkeep, taxes, ……

Worse.

The same band of cronies who enabled Enron and their schemes to fraudulently charge California for energy that didn’t exist, and that were ultimately responsible for the energy debacle in that state, have taken charge over there.

It’s much worse.

The Repugs should be SOOO proud of all their accomplishments. And the Trolls here are just too blinded by the NeoCon gilded Bullshit to even see it.

BTW: I frequently refer to VA as “Texas, Jr.”