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Sun 12 Sep, 2004 07:55 pm
BAIJI, Iraq (news - web sites) ?- During the 1991 Persian Gulf War (news - web sites), two Tomahawk cruise missiles slammed into the hulking power complex here, leaving dumpster-sized transformers crumpled like balls of tissue paper.
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The strike crippled Iraq's largest source of electricity, cutting off almost 10% of the country's power supply. It took two months and 23 days for Iraqi engineers to get the plant running again.
During last year's war, the U.S. military carefully avoided attacks on Iraq's electrical infrastructure, and the plant escaped unscathed. After Baghdad fell, U.S. engineers rushed in with aid to fix the damage from years of disrepair and a spasm of postwar looting.
Today, 17 months and $172 million later, the Baiji power plant ?- a vast "Lawrence of Arabia" meets "Blade Runner" complex 125 miles north of Baghdad ?- produces less than half the electricity it generated when it was built two decades ago.
In the long, frustrating campaign to rebuild this country, perhaps no task has been more difficult than turning on the lights.
The trouble restoring Iraq's electrical system exemplifies the failures of a larger reconstruction process still marked by tainted water supplies, limited sewage treatment and curtailed construction of public buildings. An effort that was supposed to provide jobs, stability and democracy has instead produced a deep reservoir of confusion and anger that feeds the country's deadly insurgency.
Although electricity was the foundation of the rebuilding campaign, State and Defense department planners vastly underestimated the time, money and effort needed to restore the country's power grid, which had deteriorated far beyond their expectations under 12 years of U.N. sanctions.
A review of the restoration effort shows that it was beset by poor planning, inconsistent leadership, sabotage and deteriorating security.
Quote: State and Defense department planners vastly underestimated the time, money and effort needed to
...do any damn thing in Iraq. That's been the story of the whole effort, over and over and over again.
Even when they SHOULD have known, and probably DID know but ignored the evidence, in the case of the looters for example.