Baghdad Struggles to Turn on the Juice
To supply the capital, Saddam built power plants on the outskirts of the city, which means that there is now a battle between residents in the city and residents in the outlying towns over the power that the run-down stations are able to produce. The power transmission lines are critical to maintaining electrical supply and so are prime targets for insurgents. Two months ago, insurgents severed seven of the nine transmission lines running into the city, forcing Baghdad to rely totally on locally generated power.
In the Dora district of Baghdad, residents climb construction ladders to fiddle with the electrical wires atop telephone poles, without protective gear other than canvas work gloves. It is common to see transmission wires weighed down by masses of slender wires that residents have illegally attached to siphon power from the grid.
In many neighborhoods, enterprising Iraqis have purchased generators and sell power to their neighbors. This works fine, American officials say, until the neighbors begin to siphon off those ad hoc grids. Like a swimmer among drowning men, those with power see those without it latch on to them until the entire system goes under.
Further complicating matters, private power sellers have a stake in sustaining the current mess.
"We run missions to install transformers and upgrade the grid, but the Iraqis who are trying to sell power from their own private generators go out and blow up whatever we install," says 1st Lt. Andrew Webber, part of the 1st Cavalry's Infrastructure Coordination Element. "Iraqis just don't seem to trust the government, so it's hard to get them to step up and help each other."
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