Iraqi dam seen in danger of deadly collapse

[Cooley Hurd]

Source: Washington Post (via MSNBC)

AT THE MOSUL DAM, Iraq - The largest dam in Iraq is in serious danger of an imminent collapse that could unleash a trillion-gallon wave of water, possibly killing thousands of people and flooding two of the largest cities in the country, according to new assessments by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other U.S. officials.

Even in a country gripped by daily bloodshed, the possibility of a catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam has alarmed American officials, who have concluded that it could lead to as many as 500,000 civilian deaths by drowning Mosul under 65 feet of water and parts of Baghdad under 15 feet, said Abdulkhalik Thanoon Ayoub, the dam manager. "The Mosul dam is judged to have an unacceptable annual failure probability," in the dry wording of an Army Corps of Engineers draft report.

At the same time, a U.S. reconstruction project to help shore up the dam in northern Iraq has been marred by incompetence and mismanagement, according to Iraqi officials and a report by a U.S. oversight agency to be released Tuesday. The reconstruction project, worth at least $27 million, was not intended to be a permanent solution to the dam's deficiencies.

"In terms of internal erosion potential of the foundation, Mosul Dam is the most dangerous dam in the world," the Army Corps concluded in September 2006, according to the report to be released Tuesday. "If a small problem Mosul Dam occurs, failure is likely."

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21536128/

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Like Iraqis haven't seen enough tragedy...:(

[acmavm]

1. WAY TO GO GEORGE! You can kill thousands with another example of

your buddies criminal greed and because you took over a country without a clue as to what the fuck you were doing. You allowed it to be destroyed through incompetence and corruption. And now I suppose we're gonna hear how it ain't that bad, everybody needs a bath.

[bluerum]

2. Why don't they just paint a bulls-eye on it and leave some rpg's nearby?

[ShortnFiery]

3. It's our beloved power brokers (neo-con/neo-liberal) realization of Col. Kilgore's desire to ...

Kill them All! For Vietnam, it was termed, "Bomb them back to The Stone Age." However, our evil operators over in Iraq are getting way more creative with all these large influxes of cash and booty that is, for the most part, FREE, i.e., no accountability.

We have several ways of KILLING THEM ALL: 1) Funded death squads; 2) Contributions by our local Security Contractors; 3) Covert deals with leaders of Shiite/sunni elements of the population; 4) Massive round-ups of young men for imprisonment; 3) Encouragement of "domestic terrorism" (or just leave stuff to ROT) that forces those Iraqis with money to flee the country; 4) Put Chalabi, et. al., on the ex-patriot's trail and sign them up for the team. etc. My imagination is not all that vast but there's many many more *schemes* - I have no doubt.

WASH. RINSE. REPEAT.

I know that it won't work because occupations do not ever "kill them all."

However, rest assured that those boys and girls sent to stir up shit (Petraeus and his civilian counterparts) are giving it their best shot. And here's the kicker, "It's ALL in our name." :(

[ChairmanAgnostic]

11. the Inspector General was on CSPAN this morn

and talked about the rampant fraud and corruption.

Even though Rummie appointed him, he actually spoke what seems to be the truth on many issues.

[lonestarnot]

4. incompetence and mismanagement, mandatory qualifications, all others need not apply.

[Rhiannon12866]

5. Oh, for Christ's sake, this is all we need. K&R, important story!

I wonder how much another horrific catastrophe in Iraq and the possible imminent death of another few thousand Iraqi citizens will engage the American media... Or will another revelation about Anna Nicole Smith become the next big story? *sigh* :grr:

And how about the decay of thousands of US bridges that is putting more Americans in danger everyday? Where did that story go? That has moved to the back burner, just as has happened with the daily carnage in Iraq... As Bill Maher said, another bombing, more killings, blah, blah, blah... It's just become background noise.:-(

I guess that we won't hear about that again until another major bridge collapse... And then it'll be too late, just like in Mosul... ;(

[Barrett808]

6. "The expenditures of the money have yielded no benefit yet."

Rashid said his top priority is to fix Mosul Dam by building a concrete wall at its foundation that should shore up the design and provide "a permanent solution." He said experts have just discovered cutting-edge technology that would allow such a wall to be built, perhaps with construction starting by next year at a cost of less than $1 billion.

I'm sorry, but that money has been committed to the embassy complex.

But don't worry, the dam money was well spent:

The review found that a Turkish company, which was paid $635,000 for a contract awarded 19 months ago to build storage silos for cement, had done so little and such poor-quality work that its project may have to be restarted. One company contracted to design grout-mixing plants instead submitted plans for unusable concrete-mixing plants. High-tech equipment meant to help grouting is gathering dust because it won't work, according to investigators.

Nation building, Bush-style.

[Cooley Hurd]

7. Unless they built a levee around the Embassy complex...

...it'll be under 15 feet of water should the dam burst.

[Strelnikov_]

18. I don't know where the prices for this work come from

considering it is being performed in a 'low wage' region (but I have an idea).

On that bridge recently completed in AfghanisNam, for $37M, I estimated that we could have built a similar sized bridge for 1/8 the cost here in Iowa, Federal wage rates, higher materials costs, and all.

[Homer Wells]

8. I've got a bad feeling about this story

and its current release at this time.

Call it "tin-foil-hat" thinking, if you will, but I am envisioning headlines such as

"al-Qaeda Destroys Dam in Mosul, Resulting in Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths"

coming soon to a newspaper near you.

I've always been a cynic of sorts, but the last 6 years has definitely put my cynicism into overdrive.

[johnp]

9. Hey lets throw another $27 mill at it

Stupid idiot Bush sending all that cash over to those people. They gave em $27 million and they still couldn't fix it, why not give them a billion, while people starve over here. You want to fix Mosul then blow that dam up and drown all those religious nuts. Get the troops out of there. The Iraqis problems are caused by Bush and its really none of our business.

[PaulaFarrell]

20. Er, sarcasm?

i'm hoping anyway

[ChairmanAgnostic]

10. isn't this dam made out of gypsum?

the same material and is used in wall boards?

[0007]

12. Adobe brick which is a tad strong than your normal gypsum board. nt

[DemoTex]

13. The WMD

Water of Mass Destruction

[tabasco]

14. Bridges collapse in the USA as we rebuild dams in Iraq.

Thanks Bush!

[ChairmanAgnostic]

15. just be glad that we aren't rebuilding here,

with the fraud and crap that we practice there.

[WileEcoyote]

16. Anyone remember Richard Pryor's "Mudbone and the levee breaking"?

"And the levee break and then blamed ME!"

"They said: Why didn't you warn the people"

"Well I couldn't go round wondering through that water at night warning nobody. They was all gonna find out sooner or later anyway"


Sorry! Just trying to lighten things up here...

[Baby Snooks]

17. "The Iranians will be held accountable for this..."

They claim they withheld this to keep the Iraqi people from panicking and suddenly now it's okay if they start panicking?

You have to wonder if we will wake up some morning to the 24/7 coverage of the disaster in Iraq. A dam blown up. Hundreds of thousands dead. And Bush will hold a press conference and tell us that the "perpetrators" will be brought to justice. Never mind that we're still waiting for the "perpetrators" of 9/11 to be brought to justice. That in itself is what raises the questions raised by the conspiracy theorists. Why is Osama bin Laden still a threat to us?

Bush will be followed by Cheney who will tell us that "intelligence," no doubt provided by Ahmad Chalabi who is working for the Bush Administration again despite having provided the "intelligence" that "proved" that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, has linked the Iranians not only to the dam collapse but to Osama bin Laden and 9/11. And everyone will start waving their little flags. Including Pelosi and Feinstein. The latter two not only waving their little flags but clicking their heels and going "Heil."

And with that, bombs away.

You have to wonder about "eugenics by war" which was one of the basic premises of Samuel Bush in his vision of oligarchy. Create the perfect society by killing off those you don't need or want. And what better way to do it but by war? What better cover for what you are doing but war? Samuel Bush must be so proud. Where Hitler failed, his great-grandson is succeeding.

The Iraqis who haven't been poisoned by the depleted uranium weapons will now be "waterboarded" not to get them to talk but simply to just shut them up and the Iranians will just be blown off the face of the earth. Who needs them? They have OUR oil. We want OUR oil.

Bush knew of this threat but did nothing? Why is Bush still in office?

Better to have at least filed for impeachment than to have done nothing. At least the world would have known some of us did not support this.

[Supersedeas]

24. a pre-emptive leak

[HooptieWagon]

19. We rebuild the infrastructure over there

so we don't have to rebuild it here at home...

[ret5hd]

21. Really? What infrastructure have we rebuilt there?

[happygoluckytoyou]

22. I'LL SAY IT AGAIN.....IRAQ IS A DAM SHAME __> and other sicknesses

so if i understand it correctly, we bombed the living shit out of the country (occasionally killing the random terrorist or child or wedding party).... captured and tortured thousands of citizens without just cause for many of them.... spent or will spend 2 TRILLION dollars................................................. and we believe we may be taking on water ?

i see FEMA is preparing ships to deliver 1000s of empty buckets and a few dozen adobe trailers, heck-of-a-job brownie

mccain has threatened "and if i find out this is an act of god, i will hunt him down and kill him"
laura bush chimed in with "so until we know how many will survive, we should start the breast cancer testing elsewhere"
cheney is measuring the area for a parking lot
the ghost of reagan is still looking for his jellybeans
condi has declared that we will use this flooded region as a new colony for the displaced residents of new orleans
arnold is checking to see if there is any way to route the flooding to the california wildfires
bush has decided that this is a good solution to global warming, plans to call it global wetting
the moronic govoner of MN has offered to send them a bridge, in 1000 pieces

ALL IN ALL... IF YOU CAN BUILD IT, AMERICA CAN BUILD IT BETTER... IF YOU CAN BREAK IT, NO CONTEST, WE CAN DO THAT BETTER TOO

[Strelnikov_]

23. Can't blame this one on the Chimp

Flawed design from the start. Earth fill dam from the 'Teton Dam' design era. Probably should have been emptied and rebuilt long ago.

What can be blamed on the Chimp is keeping US personnel in harms way, not using the bully pulpit to ensure something is done, and creating the chaos that ultimately ensures that nothing is done.

This is playing out like the MN bridge collapse, which was typical of most major infrastructure problems. Practicing engineers identify a high risk problem (which in this case seems particularly severe). 'Political' engineers (re: upper management) are made to find a compromise position by the politicians because the solution proposed by the practicing engineers is not politically viable (aka 'find a way to say yes').

So, the dice is rolled . . .

They did lower the operating pool level, so that should help. Some.

[Eugene]

25. BBC: Iraq dismisses Mosul Dam warnings

Source: BBC News

Last Updated: Wednesday, 31 October 2007, 11:40 GMT

Iraq dismisses Mosul Dam warnings

The Iraqi government has dismissed a US warning
that Iraq's largest dam is at imminent risk of
collapse and is threatening the lives of thousands.

Spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said US claims that Mosul
Dam, in the country's north, was the most dangerous
in the world were inaccurate and "totally untrue".

Mr Dabbagh said it was under constant observation
and regularly maintained.

In May, the US told Iraq a catastrophic collapse
could unleash a 20m (65ft) wave on Mosul, a city
of 1.7 million.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7070706.stm