U.S. Shifts Funding to Boost Power Supply in Iraq

[Up2Late]

Tue Mar 1, 2005 04:32 PM ET
By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is reshuffling Iraq rebuilding funds, putting more focus on electricity before the hot summer months to ease tensions exacerbated by daily power cuts, senior U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

Bill Taylor, a senior U.S. Embassy official in Baghdad, said use of the $18.4 billion allocated by Congress for rebuilding Iraq was being reassessed to deal with surging electricity demands caused by air-conditioning in the summer, particularly in Baghdad.

"We all know the Iraqi summers are very tough and very hot and electricity is very important to get these people through it," said Taylor in a telephone interview from Baghdad.

"We want to increase output, reduce the outages and we want the Iraqi people to see that their government is making their lives better," he added.

Billions of dollars in U.S. funds have already been pumped into improving Iraq's dilapidated power grid but electricity levels fluctuate wildly and are below prewar levels of 4,400 megawatts a day before the U.S. invasion in March 2003.
(more at link)
<http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=7777410&src=rss/worldNews>

[merwin]

1. Uh, how is that 'their government making their lives better'???

Especially when it's OUR 18.4 billion dollars.

Oh, I forgot, we ARE the government there.

[leveymg]

2. Buying surplus power from Pakistan?

They have plenty of nuclear kilowatts.

We gave it to them. Remember the Atoms for Peace Program? :nuke:

[Hobarticus]

3. Where has this money been going?!?

Where's the Congressional oversight???

Oh, I crack myself up.

[0007]

4. Seems like a repeat from what they were saying three summers

ago. What is it with these double speak asswipes, are they running out of good lies to tell who-ever?

[daleo]

5. Acting like Saddam again (re Baghdad)

"...deal with surging electricity demands caused by air-conditioning in the summer, particularly in Baghdad."

I wonder if they are directing power preferentially to Baghdad, the way Saddam did (and the U.S. criticized him for that).

[Up2Late]

6. I wonder if "The Green Zone" is sucking up all the Power...

or are people actually getting their homes re-built?:shrug:

[daleo]

7. I wondered about that too. n/t