Psyche, Science, and Society

Electricity: The behind-the-scenes struggle in Iraq

December 19th, 2006

In a sign of how truly desperate the Iraqi situation is, behind the killings and bombings in Iraq, there is the relentless struggle for power. According to the New York Times, the rebels have lain siege to Baghdad, cutting off its electricity:

Over the past six months, Baghdad has been all but isolated electrically, Iraqi officials say, as insurgents have effectively won their battle to bring down critical high-voltage lines and cut off the capital from the major power plants to the north, south and west.

The battle has been waged in the remotest parts of the open desert, where the great towers that support thousands of miles of exposed lines are frequently felled with explosive charges in increasingly determined and sophisticated attacks, generally at night. Crews that arrive to repair the damage are often attacked and sometimes killed, ensuring that the government falls further and further behind as it attempts to repair the lines.

And in a measure of the deep disunity and dysfunction of this nation, when the repair crews and security forces are slow to respond, skilled looters often arrive with heavy trucks that pull down more of the towers to steal as much of the valuable aluminum conducting material in the lines as possible. The aluminum is melted into ingots and sold….

In March, at most one or two of the lines were severed at any one time, but by the summer the typical number had risen to six or seven and had soared to a peak of 12 by early fall. Electricity officials say the decisive moment came July 6, when saboteurs mounted coordinated attacks across the country, gaining a lead in the battle that the government has not been able to reverse.

“They targeted all the lines at the same time, and they all came down,” Mr. Abbo said….

On Sunday, Mr. Abbo recited the most recent measures of the devastation. That day, 40 towers were down on a line running to Baghdad from one of the nation’s largest power plants in Baiji, in the insurgent-ridden north, and 42 more towers were down on a line connecting Baiji to a huge power plant in Kirkuk.

Towers were also down on two lines that pass through the “triangle of death” to connect Baghdad with a power plant to the south in Musayyib, and on four other lines in the Baghdad area or its environs. And the city was entirely cut off from the huge hydroelectric dam at Haditha, to the west in Anbar Province, the homeland of the Sunni insurgency.

Even the destruction of one tower generally shuts down a line.

Entry Filed under: Iraq, Middle East, Social Issues, War and Peace