Iraq - BBC Misses Saddam

You can almost feel Caroline Hawley's longing for the good old days of Saddam in this appalling BBC report.

There are continuing power cuts in much of the country and hospitals struggle to provide adequate treatment.

Sewage often pours untreated into rivers which many Iraqis have to drink from.

Look around the Iraqi capital, and the most obvious change over the past two years has been the mushrooming of concrete anti-blast barriers.

In most areas there is little visible sign of reconstruction and residents across the city have power for half the day at most.

What Caroline doesn't tell you is that a lot of this has to do with 30 years of neglect under Saddam.

She also fails to point out that Baghdad is suffering from success as well. The growing and prosperous population is putting the infrastructure under immense strain. The explosion in electrical goods owned by Iraqis is adding to the electricity strain.

Caroline would do well to read Chrenkoff to learn what is really going on in Iraq. She can't see any visible signs of reconstruction because she doesn't want to.

Here is the section on reconstruction from Chrenkoff's latest report on Iraq. Read his earlier reports and you will see what Caroline and the BBC don't want you to see.

The election seems to have generated an eruption of international good will. German government, for example, has now expressed willingness to help in rebuilding Iraq, particularly in the areas of government administration and the new constitution.

On the ground, reconstruction continues in the Medical City (at the cost of $15 million); al-Majar al-Keeber district in Meisan province (street construction, energy projects, building new schools at a cost of $0.68 million); at the Baghdad International Airport where the renovation of air traffic control center and tower is expected to be completed soon (link in PDF); in the municipality of Al-Majid where the Japanese authorities are donating $200,000 to improve local roads; and in Samawah where the Japanese government is also donating $670,000 to provide modern equipment for Samawah General Hospital.

In electricity news, USAID continues to progress with various rehabilitation projects (link in PDF): "USAID's project to increase generation at a thermal major power plant in Babil Governorate is moving forward and is now 56 percent complete... To date, USAID's rehabilitation efforts at the power plant have increased net capacity by 355 MW. When rehabilitation efforts are complete in May 2005, it is expected that the total increase in capacity will be approximately 500 MW... Work is [also] continuing on the refurbishment of two units at a large thermal power station in south Baghdad... Upon completion, an additional 320 MW is projected to be available for Baghdad's electrical grid." In Basra governorate(link in PDF), "work to rehabilitate heat exchangers and water treatment systems is now complete at two of four thermal power plants."The United Nations is now becoming more active in the reconstruction effort, most recently delivering $800,000 worth of spare parts for the Hartha power station in Basra, in order to increase the station's capacity by 40 megawatts.

In the water sector, there is good news for the residents of Baghdad, where the infrastructure is under immense strain from growing population and environmental pollution: "The Baghdad Municipality has signed a contract for the purchase of 10 drinking water stations to meet needs of the city's nearly five million people, according to the mayor. Alaa al-Tamimi estimated Baghdad's needs for drinking water at 3.2 million liters a day. He said the stations were expected to arrive next month and that 'they should treat enough water to satisfy needs'."In various water-related USAID projects (link in PDF): "Last month, engineers completed work on the rehabilitation of a wastewater treatment plant in Diwaniyah, a major city in Al Qadisiyah Governorate... Installation of chlorinator piping continues at the Najaf Water Treatment Plant." When finished, the plant will provide most of the drinking water for this city of over half a million. The restoration work has also started on the water treatment plant in Karbala; "repairing this plant is particularly important because, in addition to providing clean water to Karbala residents the plants supplies potable water to an estimated three million religious pilgrims to the Al-Hussein Shrine in Karbala each year."

Meanwhile, back in Baghdad (link in PDF), "work is continuing on the rehabilitation of Baghdad's Rustimiyah wastewater treatment plant. The plant is one of three major wastewater treatment plants serving nearly 80 percent of the capital city's residents. The three plants' treatment capacity steadily eroded under years of neglect prior to liberation and was further impacted by looting after the 2003 conflict. Prior to the rehabilitation of one branch of the Kerkh treatment plant in June 2004, none of Baghdad's sewage was being treated."

Caroline ends this missleading article with this little nugget.

Statistics are hard to come by, but one official told the BBC that more than one in 10 babies born here will die before they are five.

"Statistics are hard to come by"? Only for a lame brain like Caroline. Caroline, your terrorists loving buddies at BBC HQ had no problems reporting false statistics on malnutrition in Iraqi children. And Carloline if you had checked with your beloved UN you would find those statistics that are so hard for you to come by.

Almost half of Iraq’s total population is aged under 18. Even before the conflict began, many children were highly vulnerable to disease and malnutrition. One in four children aged under five is chronically malnourished. One in eight die before their fifth birthday.

Uh, Caroline, before the war one in eight died before their fifth birthday. Now, two years after the war, it's down to one in ten. Care to explain that improvement Caroline? Were these statistics so hard to come by or was it more the case they didn't support your biased report?

See here for a long, long list of other biased BBC reports.
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