Sabotaging the Coalition, Iraq bureaucrats in action

The situation in Baghdad grows more critical every single day and the reassurances by the Coalition Provisional Authority have grown steadily more hollow and less believable every single day.

But why should this be so?

The citizens of Baghdad are rightfully unhappy that the problems with the electrical supply are not improving some eight months after the fall of the Baathists. The people on the street say Saddam had the power up and running within three months after his 1991 trouncing and now this is becoming an untenable situation.

So what is the problem here? To understand this, we need to examine a minimum of two aspects, namely the effects on the populace and the mechanics of how the CPA is or is not working to fix the problem.

In Baghdad – outside the “green line” that defines where the CPA dwells – electricity is still only available for about an hour each day. While you might think, “So what’s the big deal?” you probably haven’t considered the objective effects.

Some of what this means, is this:

• There is not enough available electricity to run basic refrigeration for food and this greatly affects the types of stocks of food that can be safely stored within the city. What that means is that food-borne illness is on the rise and children are more susceptible to its ravages than adults … just ask your kid’s pediatrician.

• It also means the refrigeration is not available at medical clinics and so vaccines cannot be stored and therefore cannot be administered, putting the populace at risk from typhus, typhoid and cholera.

• The risk of these diseases is increased because the water pumps commonly used in the city can’t run long enough to supply clean water for drinking, cooking and bathing.

• Electricity also powers the pumps used to draw gasoline from the same kind of underground tanks as in the U.S. and therefore there is not enough fuel to power the trucks to carry in a sufficient supply of cooking fuel and kerosene for lamps.

• Forget about electric stoves and other appliances … when the electricity does come on, the lines for fuel are longer than half a mile, and many customers go away empty. Because there are just not enough animal-drawn carts in this city of 5 million to bring in these critical items and the quality of the average diet declines and people must sit at home in the dark and wait … and wait.

The health issues are manifold and the quality of life is such that if this went on for only two weeks in your own neighborhood, you’d be screaming bloody blue murder at the city and utilities in high dudgeon while feeling the righteous indignation of the abused.

Just in case you forgot, the citizens of Baghdad have put up with this for eight months and all the while having to listen to the Islamists and supporters of the fallen Baathist regime telling them in myriad ways how the United States is only there for the oil and doesn’t give a damn about them as people … while the CPA tells them it is doing a great job at rebuilding the infrastructure. Tonight, huddling together in the dark after another miserable meal, there are more than a few who are coming not to believe the CPA’s party line.

On Sunday nights, ensconced within the “green line” after drinks, steaks and lobster followed by a nice swim in a heated pool and their favorite programs on a big-screen television, the CPA bureaucrats contentedly smile at each other after filing their career-enhancing reports of the steady progress in Baghdad.

Why is there such a screaming disparity in the realities as seen by each side?

For starters, let us examine the physical situation of power generation in 1991 and earlier this year. In 1991, the electrical grid was newer and had been well maintained – as were the generation plants themselves – so three months was a reasonable turnaround time to get it back on line. Twelve years later, no significant investment had been made to replace worn-out equipment and to repair the grid, and so power became less available.

After the fall of the Baathists, civil unrest and the release of the criminal gangs that stole everything that wasn’t bolted down – and some of what was – there was also the minor damage to the system from the military action to contend with. From this, it is proper to infer that there is a need to import and install new power-generation and switching equipment.

But at this juncture we must go from the physical to the administrative side of the issue. At a basic level, there is something wrong with this picture, as it seems impossible to have such obvious disarray on one hand and yet such glowing reporting on the other.

In my last commentary delving into the function of an apparatchik, “Building the next Iraqi civil war,” it is plain to see that what we have here is a situation created by this pandemic bureaucratic phenomenon.

However, there is an interesting wrinkle to this affair, in that it is the Iraqi civil servants held over from the Baathist regime who submit the glowing reports of progress to their new American apparatchiks, who in turn send the same reports on to Washington, where yet other apparatchiks give the administration the glowing news of steady progress that is then passed down to the citizens of Baghdad who already know better.

Only problem here is that it seems nobody has considered that the Iraqi underlings may either be saying what they know is good for them (as they had to do under Saddam) or they are deliberately subverting the functioning of the system to support the failure of the American efforts. Either way, the American CPA apparatchiks have failed to use adequate safeguards against false reporting, either through willful malfeasance or a combination of simple stupidity and utter cupidity.

Any competent business manager or executive can tell you that if you don’t check the work, don’t expect it to get done right, if at all.

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Tom Marzullo is a former Special Forces soldier and a veteran of submarine special operations. He resides in Colorado.