Iraq: Mosul Dam catastrophe looms

Saddam's Damn Dam
by Daniel Pipes
Jerusalem Post
November 7, 2007

The surge of U.S. troops in Baghdad is succeeding but deeper structural problems continue to plague the American presence in Iraq. The country's largest dam, 40 kilometers northwest of Mosul, near the Turkish border, spectacularly symbolizes this predicament.

Just after occupying Iraq in April 2003, a report found that Mosul Dam's foundation was "leaking like a sieve and ready to collapse." A more recent, still-classified report from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers concludes that "The dam is judged to have an unacceptable annual failure probability." More explicitly, the corps finds the current probability of failure to be "exceptionally high." A senior aid worker calls the dam "a time bomb waiting to go off."

Mosul Dam, formerly known as Saddam Dam (Arabic: Sadd Saddam) is in danger of collapse. That's because the dam was built on unstable bedrock of gypsum that requires a constant infusion of grout to prevent the foundation from eroding and the giant earthen wall from collapsing. Over the years, engineers have pumped into the foundation more than 50,000 tons of a bentonite, cement, water, and air mixture. As the Washington Post explains, "Twenty-four clanging machines churn 24 hours a day to pump grout deep into the dam's base. And sinkholes form periodically as the gypsum dissolves beneath the structure."

Despite these efforts, the dam's condition continues to deteriorate, raising the prospect of its complete collapse. Were this to happen with a reservoir full of water, predicts Engineering News--Record, "as much as 12.5 billion cubic meters of water pooled behind the 3.2-km-long earth-filled impoundment [would go] thundering down the Tigris River Valley toward Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq. The wave behind the 110-meter-high crest would take about two hours to reach the city of 1.7 million." In addition, parts of Baghdad (population 7 million) would come under 5 meters of water.

The Army Corps estimates the flood would kill a half-million people immediately, while the aftershocks, such as power outage and drought, would kill many more. (Not coincidentally, Iraq was the site of Noah's Ark.) It would likely be the largest human-induced single loss of life in history.

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Independence for Scotland - how would it work?

A Scottish divorce... who gets the kids?
6/12/07
BBC

It's the divorce settlement from hell. With no pre-nuptial agreement in place, exactly how would Scotland withdraw from the UK, asks Chris Bowlby.

With the Scottish National Party in power in the Edinburgh devolved parliament, talk of independence is back on the agenda. Some remain sceptical that Scottish voters would back such a plan, but the SNP believes it will happen within a decade. From carving up the family property to whose head appears on Scottish stamps, how might it work?


DIVIDING UP THE FAMILY PROPERTY
Oil matters hugely to Scottish nationalists, and most experts assume that, with the North Sea oil fields in Scottish waters, Scotland would get up to 95% of UK oil reserves, and nearer half of the gas. Natural resources would stay where they lie, but all other property is usually divided in these circumstances - as it was when the Czech Republic and Slovakia split in 1992 - according to population share.

That would mean Scotland laying claim to 8 or 9% of all the UK's assets, but valuable shared institutions - such as the security services - are physically sited almost exclusively in England. Most of the UK's wealth can't simply be carted off north of the border so a compensation deal would need to be thrashed out.

Moveable property would need allocating. The Czechs and Slovaks haggled over everything from state airline aircraft to works of art to the contents of every Czechoslovak embassy abroad. What would be Scotland's share of, say, the prestigious British embassy buildings and furnishings in Paris or Washington? And the BBC?

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