Sewage Saturates Sadr City as Billions Fail to Reconstruct Iraq

[sabra]

Source: Bloomberg

Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Spare tires come in handy in Sadr City when lakes of sewage overflow trenches or bubble up from broken underground pipes. Pedestrians pull them from at-ready stacks to create a foot bridge across the excrement.

It’s a routine honed by years of neglect, indifference and, recently, good intentions sucked into a cycle of despair. Almost six years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, sewers in the sprawling Baghdad slum have become the most odorous example of how things don’t get done in Iraq.

While the U.S. has been able to pacify once-roiled areas, electricity is still spotty, drinking water is scarce and health care is limited -- even though America has spent billions of dollars on reconstruction and the Iraqi government has taken in hundreds of millions of dollars in oil revenue.

“Getting rid of this -- how can I put it delicately -- this waste material has become a dream,” says Kamal Hanjab, 44, the district council chairman. “I fear that when I die, I will be buried in it.”

Raw sewage has become something of an emblem for Sadr City, home to 2 million of Baghdad’s 5 million inhabitants. It has swamped streets since at least the early 1990s, flowing freely even as Saddam built himself eight Taj Mahal-scale palace compounds.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=ad8JHnJwlcUE&refer=home

[blueclown]

1. BushCo: We're winning the war in Iraq. n/t

[xchrom]

2. recommend -- the occupation isn't working. nt

[RedSock]

17. yes, it is. it is working beautifully

if you consider how bush co wants it to work.

what is happening there is not happening in error -- it is by careful design.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Invitation for a cholera epidemic with no sewerage system in place.

[nc4bo]

4. Just wow. Such a success, eh? In the 2nd paragraph, the first sentence sounds vaguely familiar

"It’s a routine honed by years of neglect, indifference and, recently, good intentions sucked into a cycle of despair."

Guess what fellas? We're right there with ya 'cept we can't blame it on bombings and terror attacks.

Our infrastructure is suffering from neglect and negligence due to an evil warmongering dictator and a willfully ignorant populace who thought electing * into office was a fabulous idea, not once but twice!

(yea I know about stolen elections but it never should have been close enough for them to steal in the first place.)

[benld74]

5. Billions over there, instead of having them over here, WHERE WE NEED THEM!!!!

[SpiralHawk]

6. "At least we are consistent. Smirk." - Commander AWOL & Cabal of Republicon Cronies

"On the bright side, you can be sure our contractor cronies made Massive Profit. Smirk."

- Commander AWOL & Cabal of Corrupt Republicon Cronies

[acmavm]

7. Glad to see all those billions have gone to good use.

:sarcasm:

These people will hate us unto the end of time.

[TrogL]

8. The billions ended up in someone's pocket, not in infrastructure

Either a US contractor like Halliburton skinned them off, or they got whittled away in the endless bribery and corruption that marks daily life in that part of the world.

[lumpy]

10. Bush managed to turn Iraq into a first rate third-world country.

Quite an accomplishment, a sorely broken infrastructure and death of untold Iraqi citizens. Eight+ years of hell delivered to Iraq. Hitler couldn't have done any better.

[izquierdista]

11. Hitler was the blueprint

Hitler introduced the idea of typhus and cholera as a community resource -- the concentration camp. Dubya has improved on the idea extended it to whole countries.

[madrchsod]

9. the sewage ponds are visible on google earth

the ponds are right next to the river......

opps that`s the baghdad sewage system

[Robbien]

18. Citizens of Baghdad have been complaining about this since the beginning

of the occupation. No wonder the sewage pond can be seen on google earth. And no wonder it took US media this many years to finally report there is a problem.

[Overseas]

12. K&R for the War Profiteering File.

It is really disgusting how poor the services rendered by Bush Cheney cronies have been.
Not only have they ripped us off as taxpayers, they've also shamed us as a country.

[aquart]

13. Is privatization dead yet?

[Overseas]

16. One would hope so, but the PR budget for Privatization is massive

The mythology that government is baaaad and padded like totalitarian states (always using the worst case government-controlled scenarios)and private enterprise is super efficient (showcasing lean and mean companies, not the bloated bureaucratic corporate recipients of all kinds of government handouts in the form of tax deductions for this and that cost of doing business) is a multi-million dollar campaign. Lobbyists by the hundreds promote privatization for their clients' best interests. It's just not in the public interest, it is in the Private Interest. Lots of cash expended so private interests can profit from serving the public interest.

I think it may be that just like making health care a for-profit enterprise has failed miserably, because shareholders benefit from increased illness, privatizing government services has failed because shareholders benefit from less efficiency and more profit. Privatization opens the window up for no-bid contracts from cronies. (No lovely theoretical denials, please; fact has shown this to be true in the Bush Regime.)

I look forward to the new administration reviewing the actual data regarding the privatizations enacted by the Bush Cheney Regime and restoring in-house US government management of a lot of those services. There was more accountability when they were done in-house. When government departments' work was respected, and positions were not filled by Bush Gang cronies and graduates of Liberty University, but instead based on qualifications and experience.

When the Bush Gang first took over, I thought the idea that they would deliberately destroy the government to reduce the public faith in it and thereby not need to fund it, to be a bit excessive. Yes, I'd heard that Grover Norquist wanted to reduce government to the size that could be drowned in the bathtub because Grover's swimming in cash but still wants more, but surely, I thought, they wouldn't be that reckless. They wouldn't smash it all to bits. And yet, here we sit near the end of the regime and things are far worse than I'd thought they could get. The thieves really have sucked us dry and are stealing every little coin on the way out the door.

So I'd love it if the PE has a de-privatizing taskforce to examine the real track records of the privatized services from a few different angles and undo the damage ASAP.

Had military services not been privatized, I do believe we would have already left Iraq.

[quidam56]

14. Third world Iraq, Third World Appalachia

Sounds like Presidebt Bush and his greedy bastard friends have ruined Iraq and Appalachia ! Heck of a job. http://www.wisecountyissues.com

[LynnTheDem]

15. And Iraqis should send their "DEBT OF GRATITUDE" directly to George W. bUsh.

Only George W. bUsh could have made life in Iraq worse than under Saddam Hussein.

[Solly Mack]

19. so...victory looks like shit filling the streets?

[bemildred]

20. This is the real "surge", a surge of shit and cholera. nt

[Solly Mack]

21. Yes :(

death...one way or another...death

[MadMaddie]

23. That about summs it up doesn't it!

Let's all work to make sure that * legacy reflects these horrors.

[xchrom]

22. a 10 billion dollar kick

[Incitatus]

24. Where's Joe the Plumber?

[hbskifreak]

25. lmao!

Dude,
You owe me a new keyboard, monitor, and a fresh cup of coffee!!