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12/18/2004:
"Iraqis Face Winter Shivering by Candlelight"
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - As if the daily struggle to dodge bullets and bombings is not enough, many Iraqis now face a freezing winter shivering by candlelight as persistent attacks keep the power out for more than 12 hours a day.``Saddam Hussein used to cut off the electricity for a couple of hours a day and we'd complain,'' said Fadia Karim, 33.
``Now there's no power for hours and hours every day. There's no fuel for the generators, no kerosene for the heaters. People are beyond complaining. Things are just getting worse.''
Sabotage attacks on power plants, transmission lines and the oil pipelines and fuel trucks that feed them, mean Iraqis face a cold, dark winter queuing at petrol pumps for fuel to run their generators -- for those that have a generator.
Iraqi officials, wary of growing instability ahead of the Jan. 30 election, say shortages and outages have reached crisis proportions, especially in Baghdad, with no end in sight.
``I am a firefighter, I am not even an electricity minister,'' said Iraqi Electricity Minister Ayham Sameraei.
``They hit the fuel pipelines everywhere around the power plants, they hit the trucks and scare my guys from keeping this fuel moving. These days, it's getting worse.''
Most Iraqis now get up to 12 hours of electricity daily. A few days ago, they were getting no more than eight.
Earlier this week, saboteurs hit a power plant in the northern oil city of Baiji, knocking 500 megawatts off the grid and plunging the entire country into darkness for 10 hours.
Sameraei hopes to get power supplies back up to 18 hours a day by Dec. 25 but, he admits, it all depends on security.
Twenty-one months after Washington launched its war with the promise of a brighter future, Iraq produces 4,100 megawatts of electricity, a little below prewar levels and about half the country's surging domestic demand.
Full Article: nytimes.com/reuters
