Catastrophe Looms on the Tigris - The Cracks in Saddam's Dam

[donsu]

http://counterpunch.com/patrick08112007.html


As world attention focuses on the daily slaughter in Iraq, a devastating disaster is impending in the north of the country, where the wall of a dam holding back the Tigris river north of Mosul city is in danger of imminent collapse.

"It could go at any minute," says a senior aid worker who has knowledge of the struggle by US and Iraqi engineers to save the dam. "The potential for disaster is very great."

If the dam does fail, a wall of water will sweep into Mosul, Iraq's third largest city with a population of 1.7 million, 20 miles to the south. Experts say the flood waters could destroy 70 per cent of Mosul and inflict heavy damage 190 miles downstream along the Tigris.

-snip-

The effort to prevent the collapse of the dam is overseen by the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources. The US Army Corps of Engineers has made continual efforts to monitor the deterioration and undertake remedial action. But a US report, obtained separately from the embassy statement, says that "due to fundamental and irreversible flaws existing in the dam's foundation, the US Army Corps of Engineers believes that the safety of the Mosul Dam against a potential catastrophic failure cannot be guaranteed".

-long snip-
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if the US Army Corps of Engineers has anything to do with it, the dam will break sooner then later.

flee! (I'm not joking)

[donsu]

1. wouldn't our military and contracters be washed away too?!

nt

[seemslikeadream]

2. georgie learns from his mistakes doesn't he?

[yella_dawg]

3. King George seems intent on

bringing all the joys of American Democracy to the peoples of Iraq.

Of course, the northern Kurds are the only ones not actively killing Americans at the moment. Looks like that moment may soon be over.