Triage for Iraqi Infrastructure Undermined by Criminal Gangs

WASHINGTON, DC, October 6, 2003 (ENS) - The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq has begun installing generators at 37 Baghdad water facilities and pumping stations, to ensure continuous water supply, even in the event of an electrical grid failure, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development has said. Grid repairs are being sabotaged by gangs seeking copper to smelt and sell.

Testifying in support of President Bush's request of $87 billion for U.S. military and reconstruction activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, Andrew Natsios told the the House Appropriations Foreign Operations Subcommittee September 30, and repeated in a briefing to journalists at the State Department on Friday, that the efforts of his agency are vital in rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure.

"We have helped Iraqi municipal governments repair over 1,700 pipe breaks in Baghdad's water network, increasing water flow by 200,000 cubic meters per day," Natsios said. "We have rehabilitated 70 of Baghdad's 90 non-functioning waste pumping stations."

USAID chief Andrew Natsios briefs the media at the U.S. State Department (Photo courtesy State Department)

The procurement of parts and materials is taking place under an agreement between the Iraqi Commission of Electricity, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. corporation Bechtel, USAID, and the CPA, Natsios said.

The agency chief told reporters the Iraqi power grid is still unstable due to the downing of transmission towers by criminal gangs who steal the copper wire and sell it on the black market.

When I was in Iraq in June, there were 65 transmission towers down. Bechtel did a survey by helicopter on May 15th, a month earlier, and there were 15 down. Do you know how many transmission lines are down now? 650.

Natsios said 15 transmission towers were down at the end of the war in May, 65 were down in mid-June, and now 650 transmission towers are down.

The destroyed main warehouse for spare parts at the Baghdad Electric Authority that was looted and burned in the war. (Photo by Thomas Hartwell courtesy USAID)

"They're sort of a criminal mob that's been around for a long time. They make their living by stealing stuff. They have no interest in politics. They don't shoot at our soldiers or anything. They're selling the copper from the wiring, and because of it, there's been such a flood in the market in the Middle East of copper tubing from Iraq's electrical system that the price for copper is now depressed in the Middle East," Natsios explained.

The copper was being smelted down in the southern city of Basra and being sold into Iran, he said. British troops, who are responsible for reconstruction and security in Basra have been kept busy finding and closing down these illegal smelters.

Aside from the gang related copper thefts destabilizing the Iraqi electrical grid, there have been "three or four" incidents of "inside sabotage" that have completely disabled the facilites. If the water facilities are dependent on the electrical grid, power outages like these disable the pumps at the water and sewage stations, a situation that left Natsios without water for a morning shower during his latest stay in Baghdad.

To get around this problem, Natsios explained, workers are "deconnecting the water pumping stations, the water purification stations, the sewer pumping stations, and the treatment plants from the electrical grid."

"They have their own generators. And it's much easier to protect through point security, a facility than a transmission line. So even though electricity may go down for whatever reason at some point in the future, water and sewer services will continue."

As part of the USAID's $680 million contract with Bechtel the heavy construction company is taking down electrical generating plants that are unstable or on the edge of collapse and repairing them, Natsios said.

Iraqi power station employees outside of Basra (Photo courtesy Bechtel)

"The ones that have an erratic or unreliable source of energy cost a huge amount of money and will take two years to fix were put in the bottom and they were, frankly, triaged. We're not going to do them for probably another six months to a year.," he said.

The CAP, under Ambassador Paul Bremer, is trying to put as many Iraqi people to work as possible on the infrastructure rebuilding. Natsios told reporters, "We are now employing 55,000 Iraqis doing the reconstruction work, but Ambassador Bremer wants us to bring up total employment just through our contracts to 300,000 by next year."

Bechtel has promised to subcontract up to 70 percent of the reconstruction work to Iraqi firms, said Natsios.

"If people are working, they're not shooting at us. So maximizing Iraqi business participation in this will increase the security of the country, keep people off the streets, particularly young men who, in any society, increase the level of instability if there are high unemployment rates," Natsios said.

Natsios stressed that USAID and its contractor Bechtel are not acting alone. Through grants to American groups such as the International Rescue Committee, International Medical Corps, Mercy Corps, Save the Children, World Vision, Cooperative Housing Foundation International, and CARE and international organizations such as UNICEF, the World Food Program and the World Health Organization, he said, "USAID is engaging Iraqis neighborhood by neighborhood, providing basic services and helping Iraqi communities to help themselves."

Some Baghdad residents are being trained to conduct bomb disposal. Missiles on launchers were scattered by U.S. troops as they invaded the country in March leaving the city littered with unexploded weapons. Now those materials are being used to make bombs that are hurled at coalition forces.

"Ammunition dumps were found in schools and unfinished houses - many of which have been cleared now," Tony Fish, project manager for the emergency mine action program at Norwegian People's Aid, said in a new report on the group's activities.

A house in north Baghdad was used by an Iraqi Air Defence unit to store ammunition. Later it was scavanged by looters for its brass, and more than 8,000 shells, 5,000 fuses and two tons of loose propellant were scattered in the house. (Photo courtesy Norwegian People's Aid)

The existence of large stockpiles of UXO in and around the city is a ready source of ammunition for anti-coalition forces and armed gangs, says Norwegian People's Aid in its report. "This was illustrated by the recent bombing of the UN compound in Baghdad, which made use of UXO, still readily available throughout the city," the organization said.

While President Bush is requesting $87 billion from the U.S. Congress, the United Nations will tell the Iraqi Donor Conference in Madrid later this month that Iraqi reconstruction will require $36 billion for the years 2004 to 2007.

These funds are needed in addition to the $20 billion Coalition Provisional Authority has said are needed in critical sectors, including security and oil during that time period.

Missions undertaken by the UN Development Group and the World Bank Group with assistance from the International Monetary Fund soon after major combat was declared ended in May, found that Iraq's overall reconstruction needs today are "vast" and are a result of years of neglect and degradation of the country's infrastructure, environment and social services.

About $1 billion of these needs are covered by ongoing contracts under the UN Oil-for-Food program in 2004.

The Madrid conference, scheduled for October 23 to 24, will seek funding from the donor community to address priority reconstruction and rehabilitation needs, focusing on both urgent and medium term requirements for supporting sustainable development.