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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Wasted U.S. Spending in Iraq: $53 billion and Counting
by Daniel Pipes
November 21, 2009
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In its largest reconstruction effort since the Marshall Plan, the United States government has spent $53 billion for relief and reconstruction in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, building tens of thousands of hospitals, water treatment plants, electricity substations, schools and bridges.
But there are growing concerns among American officials that Iraq will not be able to adequately maintain the facilities once the Americans have left, potentially wasting hundreds of millions of dollars and jeopardizing Iraq's ability to provide basic services to its people. The projects run the gamut — from a cutting-edge, $270 million water treatment plant in Nasiriya that works at a fraction of its intended capacity because it is too sophisticated for Iraqi workers to operate, to a farmers' market that farmers cannot decide how to share, to a large American hospital closed immediately after it was handed over to Iraq because the government was unable to supply it with equipment, a medical staff or electricity. …
In hundreds of cases during the past two years, the Iraqi government has refused or delayed the transfer of American-built projects because it cannot staff or maintain them, Iraqi and American government officials say. Other facilities, including hospitals, schools and prisons built with American funds, have remained empty long after they were completed because there were not enough Iraqis trained to operate them.
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What gets my goat is that Iraqis don't even appreciate what they have been given. The Times article quotes Ali Ghalib Baban, Iraq's minister of planning, dismissing the $53 billion on the grounds that it has not had a discernible impact. "Maybe they spent it, but Iraq doesn't feel it."
One's tempted to blame Iraqis for this travesty but the real blame belongs with the George W. Bush administration which had a vision of "a free, … stable, democratic, and prosperous Iraq" and did not let realities get in the way of its fantasy. As so often was the case with Bush, the motives were good but the implementation terrible.
"What gets my goat is that Iraqis don't even appreciate what they have been given." JP
Yes, bloody ungrateful those Iraqis, almost as if they don't want us there.
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