BAGHDAD — Just months after Americans repaired a sewage treatment plant in southern Baghdad, insurgents attacked the facility and killed the manager. Looters took care of the rest.
Nearly three years later, the plant remains an abandoned shell. Raw sewage flows through giant pipes into the Tigris River, ending up in some of the capital’s drinking water.
And those pipes are hardly the only source of contamination. Many residents only have to sniff the tap water to know something is not right.
“I fear giving it to my children directly unless I boil it,” said Enam Mohammed Ali, a 36-year-old mother of four in the New Baghdad district in the eastern part of the city.
The water crisis began as a symptom of the problems that plagued reconstruction efforts in the early years of the war. Extremists attacked infrastructure projects, including electricity stations and sewage plants, to undermine support for the U.S. and its Iraqi allies. Law and order broke down. But now, the recent decline in violence is raising hopes that the government can focus on repairing critical public services crippled by war and neglect.
Two-thirds of the raw sewage produced in the capital flows untreated into rivers and waterways, said Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.
U.S. and Iraqi officials insist that the tap water in most of Baghdad is of at least fairly good quality.
But in some Baghdad neighborhoods, notably New Baghdad and Baladiyat, the Tigris is so filthy with sewage and other pollutants that the local treatment facility can only do so much.
On Friday, the U.S. military announced the opening of a water distribution site to prevent the mixing of sewage and drinking water in New Baghdad and Baladiyat.
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More Iraqis settle in U.S.
WASHINGTON — The United States allowed in more than 2,300 Iraqi refugees last month, setting a record and putting the Bush administration on pace to surpass its goal of accepting 12,000 by the end of September.
The State Department said Friday that 2,352 Iraqi refugees had arrived in the country in July, shattering the previous record of 1,721 from June.
July’s figure brings to 8,815 the number of Iraqi refugees to have been admitted in the current budget year that ends Sept. 30, giving the administration two months to take in 3,185 to hit the target.
Officials said they expected to admit more than 1,600 Iraqi refugees in both August and September. The Associated Press
