NYTimes | Iraqis
have been complaining about electricity at least since the United
States toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. In the resulting security vacuum,
widespread looting, which American troops had no orders to prevent,
dismantled much of what had been left of the electricity grid, already
eroded by years of sanctions and war.
“Maku
kahraba! Maku amn!” were the complaints leveled by pretty much all
Iraqis to any American they came across back in those first days of the
American occupation. “There is no electricity. There is no security.” In
that order.
Iraqis
in Baghdad had been used to a fairly reliable supply of electricity.
Mr. Hussein had kept the capital disproportionately supplied, with few
power failures. It was different in the southern provinces, where
residents are predominantly from the oppressed Shiite majority, which
had risen up against Mr. Hussein in 1991 and was brutally suppressed. Many areas there got only a few hours of power a day.
American
occupation officials evened out the supply all over the country —
making it more equitable but also shocking residents of Baghdad who were
suddenly subjected to the long powerless days that other Iraqis had
been used to. The cuts were also new and enraging to people in the Sunni
heartland in the north and west, the fulcrum of Mr. Hussein’s residual
support and of the brewing insurgency against the occupation.
Among the failures of the American administration of Iraq was the inability to meet repeated promises
to get the electricity back up to the levels under Mr. Hussein.
Occupation officials put out charts trumpeting modest improvements.
But
a combination of insurgent attacks, incompetence and corruption kept
the system struggling, both then and after political power was nominally
handed to an Iraqi government in 2004. The problems have continued
since American troops left in 2011.
More than once, Iraqis sleeping on their rooftops to keep cool have been killed by stray gunfire.
Many
Iraqis have air-conditioners in their homes, but during power cuts only
some can afford to pay for generators. Those who can must often scale
back to fans and simple air coolers because there is not enough power
for air-conditioners while on generator power, and sometimes even when
on the regular grid.
So
the lucky ones drive around in their cars with the air-conditioning on,
visit shopping malls, or wait for the air coolers to switch on and
huddle around them in a single room. Those without that wherewithal find
cool where they can, sometimes swimming in dirty, sewage-tainted pools
and canals.
Help
is on the way, though, from Iran, which gained significant influence in
Iraq after the fall of Mr. Hussein and the end of the troubled American
involvement.
According to Iran’s state-run Press TV,
in the country’s biggest engineering services deal ever, an Iranian
company recently signed a deal to add 3,000 megawatts to the grid by
building a $2.5 billion power plant in Basra. It will be supplied by a
pipeline carrying Iranian natural gas.
