One of the hospitals in Erbil, a city of nearly a million people

A little over twelve months ago, Michael Totten, a Pyjamas Media associate, visited the Kurdish city of Erbil in Northern Iraq. Something of a romantic, he described his visit like this:

“In no country are Kurds closer to realizing their dream of freedom and independence than they are in Iraq. They are wrapping up the finishing touches on their de-facto sovereign state-within-a-state, a fact on the ground that will not easily be undone. And they’re transforming the hideously decrepit physical environment left to them by Saddam Hussein – a broken place that is terribly at odds with the Kurdistan in their hearts and in their minds – into something beautiful and inspiring, the kind of place you might like to live in someday yourself.

The heart of the new Kurdistan is soon to be known as the Dream City, a massive construction site going up on the outskirts of Erbil.”

The models and photos of this new development owe more to “International Suburbanism”, aka any new Australian satellite suburb, than they do to the layered history of one of the world’s oldest cities.

The US Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which lets a heap of contracts to private enterprise to provide tangible infrastructure to a) get the country running so the benefits of occupation are obvious and b) soften those intransigent Iraqi hearts and minds.

Talking Proud illustrates the benefits of this work very well – plucky Iraqis get to use the new facilities in the teeth of terrorist opposition. Even the Baghdad Railway Station has been refurbished.

Like all good government agencies, it seeks to monitor progress on the $30 billion dollars worth of projects. It wanted to assess results. But this is very difficult, because they are in unsafe areas.

So, in a gesture rather similar to John Hopkins excess death project, they decided to sample eight easily available projects. This is what the NYT says about the outcome:

” The inspections ranged geographically from northern to southern Iraq and covered projects as varied as a maternity hospital, barracks for an Iraqi special forces unit and a power station for Baghdad International Airport.

At the airport, crucially important for the functioning of the country, inspectors found that while $11.8 million had been spent on new electrical generators, $8.6 million worth were no longer functioning.

At the maternity hospital, a rehabilitation project in the northern city of Erbil, an expensive incinerator for medical waste was padlocked — Iraqis at the hospital could not find the key when inspectors asked to see the equipment — and partly as a result, medical waste including syringes, used bandages and empty drug vials were clogging the sewage system and probably contaminating the water system.

The newly built water purification system was not functioning either.”

And again:

“But those inspections found numerous instances of power generators that no longer operated; sewage systems that had clogged and overflowed, damaging sections of buildings; electrical systems that had been jury-rigged or stripped of components; floors that had buckled; concrete that had crumbled; and expensive equipment that was simply not in use.

Curiously, most of the problems seemed unrelated to sabotage stemming from Iraq’s parlous security situation, but instead were the product of poor initial construction, petty looting, a lack of any maintenance and simple neglect.

A case in point was the $5.2 million project undertaken by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to build the special forces barracks in Baghdad. The project was completed in September 2005, but by the time inspectors visited last month, there were numerous problems caused by faulty plumbing throughout the buildings, and four large electrical generators, each costing $50,000, were no longer operating.

The problems with the generators were seemingly minor: missing batteries, a failure to maintain adequate oil levels in the engines, fuel lines that had been pilfered or broken. That kind of neglect is typical of rebuilding programs in developing countries when local nationals are not closely involved in planning efforts, said Rick Barton, co-director of the postconflict reconstruction project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research organization in Washington”

However, Iraq is not just another Third World country. It had a sophisticated infrastructure and a strong tradition of education. Monster though he was, Saddam was busily developing a technocracy. Erbil, by the way, is the Kurdish capital, a city away from the fighting.

Meanwhile, there is a http://www.rebuild-iraq-expo.com/"target="blank">reconstruction expo about to be held. Here we see how the invasion of Iraq is such a symbol of free enterprise success:
“Iraq’s reconstruction market is worth a stunning $100 billion – making it one of the biggest anywhere in the world – and is set to expand further, as yet more contracts are signed and projects drawn up. Frenzied construction activity surrounds hundreds of projects, worth billions of dollars, and spanning every single sector of Iraq’s rebounding economy.

Iraq’s liberal, open markets – almost entirely free of restrictions – are helping fuel construction sector activity. Meanwhile, ever more leading manufacturers and suppliers from across the globe are seizing lucrative slices of Iraq’s construction market, and in doing so are helping positively forge the future of the country. Benefits from Iraq’s construction sector are set to increase further.

The country’s revenue generation potential – bolstered by abundant oil and other resources, as well as the long-term commitment of global donors to the reconstruction effort – is enormous. It can rival all other major regional economies.”

”

The expo is being held from the 7th to the 10th of May – in Jordan. In other words, even the agency responsible for encouraging people to go and work in Iraq is not game to go and work in Iraq. Everyone who goes will know why they are not in Iraq, so the thing seems to be a forlorn hope from the start.

I searched for the Erbil Maternity Hospital on the internet, fully expecting to find a Halliburton logo. Instead, it turns out the project was run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gulf Region Northern District. http://www.grd.usace.army.mil/news/releases/recon070606.html"target="blank">The press release emphasises the importance of reducing the levels of infant mortality, and discusses the horrendous statistics:

“Childhood mortality in the south/centre of Iraq rose significantly under the sanctions imposed since the Gulf War. Infant mortality has rose to 108 per 1000 live births; mortality in the under-fives to 131 per 1000. During the same period in the autonomous northern region, childhood mortality declined to 59 per 1000 live births (infants) and 72 per 1000 (under five).”

Erbil is in the north, in the area where the rate of child mortality declined, presumably because sanctions didn’t savage the Kurds in the same way.

The NYT knows more about that press release:

“A 2006 news release by the Army Corps, titled “Erbil Maternity and Pediatric Hospital — not just bricks and mortar!” praises both the new water purification system and the incinerator. The incinerator, the release said, would “keep medical waste from entering into the solid waste and water systems.”

But when Mr. Bowen’s office presented the Army Corps with the finding that neither system was working at the struggling hospital and recommended a training program so that Iraqis could properly operate the equipment, General Walsh tersely disagreed with the recommendation in a letter appended to the report, which also noted that the building had suffered damage because workers used excess amounts of water to clean the floors.

The bureau within the United States Embassy in Baghdad that oversees reconstruction in Iraq was even more dismissive, disagreeing with all four of the inspector general’s recommendations, including those suggesting that the United States should lend advice on disposing of the waste and maintaining the floors.

“Recommendations such as how much water to use in cleaning floors or disposal of medical waste could be deemed as an intrusion on, or attempt to micromanage operations of an Iraqi entity that we have no controlling interest over,” wrote William Lynch, acting director of the embassy bureau, called the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office.”

The American Public Works Association describes the difficulties of working in Erbil. Cameron Berkuti is

‘working with different department heads and our military to provide an assessment of needs of infrastructure and developing short-term and long-term plans to address them. We are working under very difficult conditions. Guards are necessary everywhere we go. Security is a big problem. Our working hours are seven days a week and 16 hours a day.

That was in 2004. The site also presented a set of apposite proverbs, my favourite of which is this:

“Do not stand in a place of danger trusting in miracles.” – Arab Proverb

This entry was posted on Monday, April 30th, 2007 at 12:48 am and is filed under Iraq. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.