Iraqi power grid nearing collapse

[Truth-Bringer]

Iraqi power grid nearing collapse

"The shortages across the country are the worst since the summer of 2003, shortly after the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein."

Mission accomplished!

Rest of article here (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070804/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=A0WTUfuA8LRG4DIAjwys0NUE)

[palerider]

You didn't mention that the stress on the grid is due to an incredible number of people sudenly being able to purchase conveniences that require electricity. The grid is being stressed due to prosperity.

[Truth-Bringer]

You didn't mention that the stress on the grid is due to an incredible number of people sudenly being able to purchase conveniences that require electricity. The grid is being stressed due to prosperity.

ROTFL. Yeah, like the 4 hour lines for gas are due to prosperity... Guess again:

http://www.mises.org/story/2026

[palerider]

ROTFL. Yeah, like the 4 hour lines for gas are due to prosperity... Guess again:

http://www.mises.org/story/2026

Lots of new cars on the road there as well. Their infrastructure wasn't designed to handle the new demands. Face it, entrepeneurship and consumption are going through the roof and taxing their systems far beyond anything experienced with saddam in power.

[vyo476]

Lots of new cars on the road there as well. Their infrastructure wasn't designed to handle the new demands. Face it, entrepeneurship and consumption are going through the roof and taxing their systems far beyond anything experienced with saddam in power.

Great, so their infrastructure is a mess. Whose fault is that? Either ours or Al Maliki's government's, and either way the fault can be traced back to us.

But whatever. Growing pains are growing pains and they don't really matter so much in the face of an insurgency that's turned the capital city into a constant battleground.

But hey - at least there's that one part of Iraq that's really, completely benefited from our presence. I am, of course, referring to Kurdistan. Check this **** out: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/16/60minutes/main2486679.shtml

That's prosperity.

[palerider]

Great, so their infrastructure is a mess. Whose fault is that? Either ours or Al Maliki's government's, and either way the fault can be traced back to us.

But whatever. Growing pains are growing pains and they don't really matter so much in the face of an insurgency that's turned the capital city into a constant battleground.

But hey - at least there's that one part of Iraq that's really, completely benefited from our presence. I am, of course, referring to Kurdistan. Check this **** out: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/16/60minutes/main2486679.shtml

That's prosperity.

The "mess" is a result of a growing economy. You want to blame us for that? Go ahead.

The truth is that most of Iraq is growing and flourishing. 90% of the violence is within a 50 mile radius of Baghdad in a nation the size of California. Progress is being made as much as the left hates it.

[Coyote]

oops...

[vyo476]

The "mess" is a result of a growing economy. You want to blame us for that? Go ahead.

The truth is that most of Iraq is growing and flourishing. 90% of the violence is within a 50 mile radius of Baghdad in a nation the size of California. Progress is being made as much as the left hates it.

Go back and read again. "Growing pains are growing pains..."

You have this knack for only reading the parts of my posts you want to disagree with.

[Truth-Bringer]

Lots of new cars on the road there as well. Their infrastructure wasn't designed to handle the new demands. Face it, entrepeneurship and consumption are going through the roof and taxing their systems far beyond anything experienced with saddam in power.

Produce and present evidence there are more cars on the road now than there were in 2002. Who's driving these cars?...since it appears many Iraqis have left:


War in Iraq Spurs Massive Migration


"Nearly 2 million Iraqis -- about 8 percent of the prewar population -- have embarked on a desperate migration, mostly to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16967176

Professionals Fleeing Iraq As Violence, Threats Persist

Exodus of Educated Elite Puts Rebuilding at Risk

By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 23, 2006; Page A01

BAGHDAD -- The office of Iraq's most eminent cardiologist is padlocked. A handwritten sign is taped on his wooden door in the private clinic in Baghdad: Patients of Dr. Omar Kubasi should call him in Amman, Jordan.

There, Kubasi, 63, spends his days sitting at a cafe with other physicians and professionals from Iraq. Frustrated, he watches from afar as the medical education system he helped set up during his 36-year career slowly disintegrates. His teaching doctors are fleeing the country in fear. Younger physicians are looking for other countries to train in. Even patients are leaving, no longer confident in the care they can get in Iraq.

"I think it's part of the plan for the country's destruction," Kubasi said by telephone. "The situation in the last six months has gotten so bad, we couldn't continue."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/22/AR2006012201112.html


Doctors Under Fire in Iraq

by Aaron Glantz with Salam Talib

Until two weeks ago, Ali Falah worked as an emergency room doctor in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. The city, which is ethnically mixed but dominated by two Kurdish militias, has been the scene of increased sectarian violence. Most doctors left the city earlier this year after one physician was gunned down inside the emergency room.

Falah says lately he's often been the only doctor on the floor of an emergency room that receives 80 patients a day. Falah says he was ready to hang on and continue working, but two weeks ago someone dropped a note off at his home in a Shi'ite section of Kirkuk.

"They threw a letter in the house saying the residents who are Shia have to leave the city," he says. "Otherwise, they said, 'What will happen, will happen.' So most of the people left. Me also."

Falah says that was the last straw. He left for the southern province of Amara, where he's living near his fiancée's family. He's given up medicine, saying it's too dangerous, and is working for a company. He won't say which type.

http://www.antiwar.com/glantz/?articleid=9719


Doctors Fleeing Iraq

Associated Press | November 22, 2006

VIENNA, Austria - Iraq's top doctors are under threat and are fleeing the country, leaving hospitals in the hands of medical students or junior physicians, an Iraqi lawmaker said Wednesday.

Doctors have been kidnapped and killed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that toppled ex-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, said Dr. Rajaa al-Khuzai, an obstetrician who is an elected member of the Iraqi National Council.

"They have been targeted since the fall of the regime," she told The Associated Press during a visit to Austria. "Some of them have been kidnapped and found dead in the streets, some have been released after paying a ransom."

She also told reporters earlier Wednesday that Iraqi hospitals face a shortage of medicines and are in dire need of new equipment.

"We were promised, or we believed, that we would have many new hospitals being built, and many health centers ... but none of this has been done," she said. "No hospitals have been built so far; only some of the hospitals have been serviced."

"So if you want to see a good ophthalmologist in Baghdad, you'll never find one. If you want a good gynecologist ... you'll never find one," she said. "The health services are very bad."

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,119420,00.html?ESRC=iraq.RSS

[palerider]

Produce and present evidence there are more cars on the road now than there were in 2002. Who's driving these cars?...since it appears many Iraqis have left:

Your reasoning is faulty. Do believe that because some people are leaving the country that those who remain who didn't own cars are unable to buy them. If two million people left california, do you believe that it's energy demand could not increase? Two million people is a drop in the bucket for both california and iraq.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=27555

Clip:

Senor cited a number of causes to the gasoline shortage, which has made for long gas lines at neighborhood stations throughout the country. He said prosperity is one reason. There are 250,000 more cars in Iraq since the fall of Saddam, he said, and the increase in demand is one reason for the shortage.


Your articles are typically irrelavent to the facts. The fact is that the infrastructure in iraq is not equipped for the growth that the country is experiencing. More cars, more electrical conveniences, more computers, more televisions, more media outlets etc., etc., etc. Prosperity is taxing their energy supply.

[Truth-Bringer]

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=27555


B.S. Your source is a biased military source. According to the military, everything is going great in Iraq and constantly improving. Sorry, but propaganda proves nothing.

[USMC the Almighty]

B.S. Your source is a biased military source. According to the military, everything is going great in Iraq and constantly improving. Sorry, but propaganda proves nothing.

That's week, Truth. You can't refute the substance so you attack the messenger. Who else would keep statistics on this? No one else leaves the GZ.

[palerider]

Your complaint is a fallacious circumstantial ad homenim since the source has nothing at all to do with the truth or untruth of the story. Nice try though.

[palerider]

That's week, Truth. You can't refute the substance so you attack the messenger. Who else would keep statistics on this? No one else leaves the GZ.

You expected something else?

[Truth-Bringer]

That's week, Truth. You can't refute the substance so you attack the messenger. Who else would keep statistics on this? No one else leaves the GZ.

What substance is their to refute? Where did they get their statistics? Where is the proof? It's not there. You have to take the source's word for it, and the fact is, THEY'RE BIASED.

[palerider]

What substance is their to refute? Where did they get their statistics? Where is the proof? It's not there. You have to take the source's word for it, and the fact is, THEY'RE BIASED.

Bias is irrelavent to whether or not the statement is true.

Unless you have been there personally, two times; once to inventory cars before the war and again to inventory them recently, you have to accept the source's word for it.

The original source offers no "proof" that the report on the power grid is factual or not, you have to take their word unless you have been there personally and checked out the grid of the entire nation.

And unless you can prove that the story on the cars is untrue, "THEY'RE BIASED." doesn't cut it. Everyone is biased to one degree or another. Information is either true or it is not. Should I point out that your source is expressing their bias by titling the article in such a way as to give one the impression that the entire nation is about to be without power? Deep in the article, one learns that the individual provinces are about to disconnect the capital from the grid because it is a drain on thier systems. If they weren't biased, they would have reported that baghdad is suffering, but not necessarily the rest of the grid.

You might note early in your article that even they admit that increased demand is one of the prime factors and they offer no proof at all to suggest that sabotage is a more important factor than rising demand even though they print it first among the list of causes.

If you can't prove it untrue, accept it and stop your whining.

[Hard Driver]

Palrider... Bah ha ha ha ha

The fact that electrical generation has not reached pre-war capacity has nothing to do with it. The fact that the high voltage lines leading to Baghdad have been sabataged doesn't matter either. This is all indications that the prosperity in Iraq is growing.

Read this and then tell me that it is prosperity that is causing the problem.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/01/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-Black-Market-Power.php

Show me that statistics that generation capacity is past pre-war levels and that growing usage is the problem. Too bad your delusion can't be backed up by facts.

[palerider]

Notice hard driver that your article is speaking of baghdad just like truth bringer's article. Not the rest of the country. A city is having a hard time, not the country. You should read your own sources more carefully.

[Hard Driver]

I guess you missed the first post of this thread:

"there had been four nationwide blackouts over the past two days. The shortages across the country are the worst since the summer of 2003"

"Karbala province south of Baghdad has been without power for three days"

"Najaf provincial spokesman Ahmed Deibel confirmed to The Associated Press Sunday that the gas turbine generator there had been removed from the national grid. He said the plant produced 50 megawatts while the province needed at least 200 megawatts. What we produce is not enough even for us."

Maybe you are the one who should be reading closer..

And I noticed you still have provided no sources for your claims.

[palerider]

I guess you missed the first post of this thread:

"there had been four nationwide blackouts over the past two days. The shortages across the country are the worst since the summer of 2003"

"Karbala province south of Baghdad has been without power for three days"

"Najaf provincial spokesman Ahmed Deibel confirmed to The Associated Press Sunday that the gas turbine generator there had been removed from the national grid. He said the plant produced 50 megawatts while the province needed at least 200 megawatts. What we produce is not enough even for us."

Maybe you are the one who should be reading closer..

And I noticed you still have provided no sources for your claims.

Again, by your own admission, you are talking about very localized problems. Not, by any stretch of the imagination a national crisis. And the problems that are being experienced are in large part due to prosperity and greater demand than existed when saddam was in power.

And I have given a source for my claim about additional cars. If you can disprove it, feel free. Every source that has been given with regard to the power grid has listed greater demand among the problems. My case is made, my points are proven. Good luck in disproving them.