Dark Iraq

Dark Iraq: the Other Struggle for Power U.S. Failing to Meet Its Goal on Electricity

Jun 15 - International Herald Tribune

Tripped up by problems including sabotage and a reliance on by- the-book engineering, the United States has failed by a wide margin to meet its long-stated goal of reviving Iraq's electricity output for the start of the searing summer.

The U.S.-led occupation missed its goal by as much as 30 percent, starving air-conditioners, lights, factories and oil pumps. That has damaged the coalition's efforts to foster stability and good will among a populace already traumatized by the failure to guarantee its security.

The goal, one of the U.S.-led civilian administration's highest priorities, was set soon after occupation forces overran the country in the spring of 2003. It seemed within reach, but with little progress so far, the occupation is talking about succeeding sometime well into this summer.

The United Nations estimated that before the war, Iraq could produce 4,500 megawatts of electricity at any time. With the fighting and looting, the production capacity plunged wildly before beginning to rebound.

Capacity has been stuck around 4,000 megawatts for months. Not only is that less than during the Saddam Hussein era, but it is far below the U.S. promise of 6,000 megawatts.

Even if that level is attained, demand is leapfrogging higher. That could portend a difficult season, just when the interim government takes up its duties and tries to claim popular support.

The reasons for the shortfall are both obvious and subtle. They include insurgents' attacks on plants and power lines, the harassment and killing of engineers, pullouts by companies doing repair work, and problems finding spare parts for outdated Iraqi equipment.

Some Iraqis also complain that Western engineers have been unable to grasp the complexities of a creaky electrical grid that is a patchwork of ancient Russian, German, Yugoslav, Chinese and U.S. equipment. The Iraqis say that the engineers, often Americans, reflexively reach for fancy new gear costing tens of millions of dollars that can take months or years to order, ship and install.

Iraqis are skilled at balancing the vast swirl of electrical supply and demand on their grid with phone calls and intuition, while Americans rely on computerized sensors and automatic control circuitry.

The shortage has left ordinary Iraqis seething, particularly in Baghdad. The city was generously supplied with electricity at the expense of the rest of the country under Saddam, but now it receives a more proportional share of the smaller pie and is subject to frequent cutoffs.

"They said early March, and then they said early May, and finally they said early June the electricity would be perfect," said Feras al-Rubae, a money-changer who sat sullenly in his stuffy shop during a power failure. "But now it is early June, and where is the promise?"

L. Paul Bremer 3rd, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, has long emphasized the central importance of restoring electricity. First, electricity is needed to produce oil, the export of which is vital to Iraq's economy. Besides, Bremer said, electricity "affects the lives of ordinary Iraqis."

Bremer said he expected capacity to reach 6,000 megawatts during the summer. By contrast, production in Texas can soar to 60,000 megawatts during an exceptionally hot day.

The lower-than-expected output is the result of "a combination of factors," said Tom Crangle, the Coalition Provisional Authority's acting senior adviser for electricity. Crangle was a senior manager at the Tennessee Valley Authority, the largest public power company in the United States. Rebuilding older generators, ordinarily time- consuming, has been drawn out further after engineers discovered that Saddam's government had left them decrepit, Crangle said. Importing enormous new generators into a country in chaos posed new challenges.

Sabotage has been directed at transmission lines, power plants and some oil and gas pipelines that provide fuel for the plants. According to an internal Iraqi government report obtained by The New York Times, more than 100 of the main electrical lines and nearly 1,200 of the towers supporting them have been damaged or destroyed since the invasion.

Crangle said that about 90 percent of that damage had been repaired and that the destruction from new attacks was being fixed nearly as fast as it occurred.

For far more extensive news on the energy/power visit: http://www.energycentral.com .