Baghdad's water still undrinkable 6 years after invasion

[rollingrock]

March 18th, 2009 11:07 pm
Baghdad's water still undrinkable 6 years after invasion

By Matthew Schofield / McClatchy Newspapers

The stench of human waste is enough to tell Falah abu Hasan that his drinking water is bad. His infant daughter Fatma's continuous illnesses and his own constant nausea confirm it.

"We are the poor. No one cares if we get sick and die," he said. "But someone should do something about the water. It is dirty. It brings disease."

Everybody complains about the water in Baghdad, and few are willing to risk drinking it from the tap. Six years after the U.S. invaded Iraq, 36 percent of Baghdad's drinking water is unsafe, according to the Iraqi Environment Ministry - in a good month. In a bad month, it's 90 percent. Cholera broke out last summer, and officials fear another outbreak this year.

"Even if the water is good today, no one would trust it," grocer Hussein Jawad said. He said that about 40 percent of his business was selling bottled drinking water, crates of which he's stacked 7 feet high on the sidewalk. "We've learned to be afraid..."


(more)

www.kansascity.com/451/story/1093758.html

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Where'd all the Reconstruction money go? Straight into Dick Cheney's pockets?

[babylonsister]

1. I read this yesterday and felt awful about their situation.

Today I read this:

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/03/19/Minister_says_Iraq_has_74B_in_reserves/UPI-98751237482488/

Minister says Iraq has $74B in reserves

Seems to me they should be fixing their water problems for their citizens.

[spanone]

2. yea, we're being greeted in the streets as liberators, ain't we?

[indepat]

3. Surely such is a human-rights violation under any international standard: had there just been enough

reconstruction dollars available to provide safe drinking water. :P

[soothsayer]

4. I'm amazed at the amount of people who think that Iraq didn't have clean water

or reliable electricty of decent schools or excellent hospitals (their cardiac center was the jewel of the mideast) prior to our invasion. I guess shrubby did a good job making it sound like we were trying to build these things for them, failing to mention that we had in fact destroyed their whole infrastructure.

[Delphinus]

5. I wish I could recall which

M$M I watched that went to all these different cities, showing how well things had changed in just the past year. Not a word about how their infrastructure was doing - just that people could walk in the market, etc.

[NightWatcher]

6. hey, we're bringing democracy not clean water

how's that democracy working out? didnt they vote us out of there?