the Disillusioned kid: Success Story
| Email | Home | Linkage | Profile |

Sunday, August 08, 2004

Success Story

I said a while ago that I wouldn't blog about Iraq for a while and indeed I haven't. The situation is becoming increasingly depressing. Sifting through the wealth of information coming out of the country it is difficult to find much, to be positive about. The Sunni insurrection continues, the Shia uprising centered around Moqtada Al-Sadr has reignited and people continue dying, with the country's Christian population becoming targets for the first time in a particularly horrific turn of events. To be fair their are occasional good news stories. The US has finally gotten around to organising rubbish collection in Baghdad, but, given that this has taken almost a year and a half, its difficult to get very excited about it.

One of the most telling stories about the conduct of the occupation is the situation in Basra, which (tellingly in my opinion) does not seem to have attracted much comment in the media. You may recall that Basra has been presented as the "success story". Administered by British troops, who according to the British media at least, are much better behaved than their American counterparts (before anyone accuses me of anti-Americanism, I remain very dubious about these claims) it has largely avoided the violence which has blighted so much of the rest of Iraq and remained relatively peaceful. Even here however, the situation for the population is grim. Ross Mountain, acting special representative of the UN Secretary General for Iraq, told Reuters, "We are confronting a potential serious humanitarian crisis," with a shortage of drinking water at the peak of summer, a situation exacerbated by ongoing power cuts.

"We have no indication that there is anywhere else in the country that is facing this kind of crisis. Nobody is facing 50 degree (Celsius) temperatures with less than half the supply of water required ... There is nowhere as bad as the Basra area." Basra has apparently always faced problems accessing drinking water despite being close to the Shatt al-Arab waterway formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates. This is a consequence of a lack of investment (presumably because the city is largely Shia), the effect of three wars and the sanctions regime. "The south does present the most dire prospect at the moment in terms of (drinking water) supplies. Basra has been traditionally neglected. Lack of maintenance, lack of attention means it is the first to go. The pumps will collapse." Nonetheless these long-running problems should not obscure the fact that the situation in the city is worse than it was before the war. Not only can we not maintain order, but we can't keep the water running either.

Mountain warns that levels were at 40-60% of those required by the population and that "[i]f emergency measures are not taken, there will be loss of life and disease." He also warned of civil unrest, noting, "Water is life and if people don't get water they are unlikely to sit quietly at home. The first demonstrations have already taken place with people protesting and it is not unreasonable to think that could happen again." It goes without saying that the last thing that the occupying forces and the Interim Government need is further unrest in Iraq.

One of the things that's struck me following the developments in Iraq has been the incompetence of the occupying forces: their clumsy efforts to silence Moqtada Al-Sadr's ravings by closing down his paper brought them into open conflict with him and his supporters; their brutal attack on Fallujah turned the entire city against them and forced the US into an embarrassing retreat; and now because we can't get organised to provide the population of Basra with water, we may see them turn against us as well.
|

Links to this post:

Create a Link

<< Home

Side Projects

Carnival of Anarchy
The Peace Pipe
UK Watch Blog

Acquaintances

Against the Current
Atopian.org
Culture hits and gendered bits
Daniel Randall
In The Water
Mike Wood
On The Barricades
Pizarro's Sword
Space Cat Rocket Ship
Surveillant Assemblage
TashCamUK FotoPage
The Naked Lunch
The Peace Pipe
The World of the Dynamite Lady

Strangers

Anarchoblogs
Antiwar.com Blog
Arte & Lingua
Barker in Valencia
Blairwatch
Bloggerheads
Blood & Treasure
Bombs and Shields
Boomablog
Born at the Crest of the Empire
Chase me ladies...
Chicken Yoghurt
Craig Murray
Dead Men Left
Direland
Disreputable Lazy Aliens
Empire Notes
Europhobia
Friends of Al Jazeera
Global Guerillas
Guerillas in the Midst
I Blame the Patriachy
Informed Comment
Insultadarity
Janine Booth
Lenin's Tomb
Life of Riley Blog
Media Watch Watch
Neil Shakespeare
NO2ID NewsBlog
One Hump or Two?
Otto's Random Thoughts
Perfect.co.uk
Pitch In For Uzbekistan
Registan.net
Run over by the truth
Solidarity With Iraqi Workers
Shut Up You Fat Whiner!
Sudan: Passion of the Present
Talk Politics
The Anthropik Network
The Daily (Maybe)
The Devil's Kitchen
The Disillusioned
The f-word
The Head Heeb
The Killing Train
The Revenge of Winston Smith
The Socialist Unity Blog
The Wicked Truth
Theory of Power
Things I Don't Have Time For
This (Fresh) Gringo
This Is My Truth
Thumping the Tub
Time The Dreaded Enemy
UK Watch Blog
UK Poli Blogs
underbrella
Under The Same Sun
Uzbekistan.neweurasia.net
What Fresh Hell Is This?
Where is Raed? (RIP)
Who Are You to Accuse Me?
Words and Rocks
Zeropointnine
Z-Net Blog

Neighbours

Asbo Community Space
Defy-ID
Eastside Climate Action
Faslane 365
Freecycle
Indymedia
No Borders
Nottingham Student Peace Movement
Refugee Forum
Stop the War
Sumac Centre
The Demo Project

Ivory Towers

Anarchist Studies Network
Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice
Postanarchism Clearinghouse

Miscellania

Anarchist FAQ
Antiwar.com
Chagos Discussion List
Chagos Support Forums
Electronic Intifada
Future of Iraq Portal
Index of Political Blogs
Indymedia UK
Infoshop
Iraq Occupation Focus
Pledgebank
Refuser Solidarity Network
SchNEWS
Socialist Unity Network
The New Standard
UK Chagos Support Association
UK Watch
Weekly Worker
Wikipedia
WriteToThem.com
Z-Net

The Progressive Blog Alliance

Register here to join the PBA.