Despite Billions Spent Lights in Iraq remain on `off'

U.S. PLAN TO RESTORE POWER LARGELY FAILS
By T. Christian Miller
Los Angeles Times

http://www.miami.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/13488582.htm?source=rss&channel=mercurynews_world

"U.S. officials have blamed insurgent attacks, unchecked demand and the poor conditions of Iraq's power plants for hobbling the bid to restore electricity. But interviews with dozens of U.S. and Iraqi officials reveal that poor decisions by the United States also played a significant role.

Perhaps most serious was the decision to expand a program begun under Saddam Hussein to install dozens of natural-gas-fired electrical generators, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. Iraq has such gas in abundance, but it uses only a fraction of it. The rest is burned off during oil production.

The United States spent hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase and install natural-gas-fired generators in electricity plants throughout Iraq. But pipelines needed to transport the gas were not built because Iraq's Oil Ministry, with U.S. encouragement, concentrated instead on boosting oil production to bring in hard currency for the nation's cash-starved economy.

In at least one case, the United States paid San Francisco-based Bechtel $69 million for a natural-gas-fired plant that never was built, according to U.S. State Department documents and U.S. officials.

All told, of 26 natural gas turbines installed at seven plants in Iraq -- ranging in cost from a few million dollars to more than $40 million -- only seven are burning natural gas, reconstruction officials said."

"As riots broke out in Baghdad over the lack of electricity, I heard Nadeem Haki, a shop-owner in Baghdad, say: ‘We thank God that the air we breathe is not in the hands of the government. Otherwise they would have cut it off for a few hours each day.’

I heard a man who had been in Abu Ghraib prison say: ‘The Americans brought electricity to my ass before they brought it to my house.’"

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n01/wein01_.html