Water Purifying Projects Completed Near Baghdad
By Nathan Burchfiel
CNSNews.com Correspondent
March 28, 2006
(CNSNews.com) - Soldiers in Iraq last week completed a water treatment and storage project that provides purified water to residents of four communities north of Baghdad, according to the Department of Defense.
Soldiers from the 7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiments and Company A, 490th Civil Affairs Battalion tested and approved storage containers, finalizing a project that purifies water from local canals. The new storage tanks feature faucets that allow residents to fill their own containers to transport water to their homes.
"We are happy," Sheik Modar Thamir, a leader in one of the affected communities, said in a release issued by Central Command in Taji. "Now we have fresh drinking water."
The Army Corps of Engineers (ACE), which is working to rebuild public services in Iraq and Afghanistan, reports on its website that 243 public water projects have been completed in Iraq since 2004. Another 144 projects are underway.
The ACE consists mostly of civilian engineers, scientists and other specialists who work with the military at home and abroad. Most of its work is done in the United States, but it established a provisional division in January 2004 to assist with the rebuilding of Iraq.
The water treatment projects are aimed at repairing water purification systems that operated "at a fraction of their pre-war capacity due to years of neglect, electricity shortages and post-war looting," according to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
USAID, an independent federal government agency, is also working with coalition forces and non-governmental organizations to rebuild public services in Iraq.
USAID estimates that "over (sic) 2.4 million Iraqis who had no clean drinking water in 2002 (before the March 2003 invasion) now have access to safe, potable water," according to the agency's website. "By 2006, water treatment service will be provided to over (sic) 3.3 million Iraqis."
An anti-war group, however, questions the success of water facilities in Iraq. "I don't know what to believe about what the military says it's doing and all the wonderful work it's doing," said Art Dorland, the chairman of the Iraq Water Project, an offshoot of the group Veterans for Peace.
The group, established in 1999, helped repair six water treatment facilities in the years before the 2003 invasion but has not sent a delegation to Iraq since war broke out because of the dangers.
"There probably are successes and there are probably areas that they have done good work," Dorland told Cybercast News Service , but "whatever's being done there is basically being done to benefit the United States and not the people of Iraq."
Dorland's group is opposed to the United States' pre-war policies toward Iraq, and opposed United Nations sanctions against Saddam Hussein. "The United States is partly responsible for the collapse of the Iraqi infrastructure even before the war started," Dorland said. "Our policies over there were very instrumental in creating that situation so I think we have a responsibility that goes beyond just whatever's entailed with the invasion and occupation."
Spokesmen for the Army Corps of Engineers and USAID did not return calls requesting comment for this article.
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