US embassy cable - 05BAGHDAD4789

UNCLAS BAGHDAD 004789 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR INR/R/MR, NEA/PPD, NEA/PPA, NEA/AGS, INR/IZ, INR/P 
 
E.0. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OPRC, KMDR, KPAO, IZ, Elections, Media 
SUBJECT: DAILY IRAQI WEBSITE MONITORING - November 30, 2005 
 
 
SUMMARY: Discussion of the lack of essential services and 
the neglect of the public sector in electoral campaigns is 
the major editorial theme of Iraqi, Arabic language websites 
on November 30, 2005. END SUMMARY. 
 
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 
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A.   "Electoral Sewage" (Iraq 4 All News, 11/30) 
 
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SELECTED COMMENTARIES 
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A. "Electoral Sewage" 
(Editorial by Fatih Abdul Salam - Iraq 4 All News - 
http://iraq4all.org - Independent, based in Denmark) 
 
"Any Iraqi politician carrying a national slogan should be 
ashamed of himself, especially in front of the people, for 
all Iraqi cities without exception are turning into large 
flooded areas where sewage pipelines are exposed in 
residential neighborhoods forsaken by the ministries of 
health, environment, human rights, and others. 
 
"The availability of essential public services for Iraqis, 
to provide their children with decent living standards is 
the key factor for people's trust in politicians. No healthy 
political environment can correlate with open sewage 
networks feeding polluted swamps in neighborhoods and main 
roads in large cities, not only in small towns or cities 
devastated by continuous war. 
 
"Where have the significant funds dedicated to cleaning the 
drainage channels in southern Iraq, especially Basrah, by 
the former civil administrator Paul Bremer, the wrecker of 
Iraq, disappeared? Why are projects carried out by large 
ministries still lagging behind those that could be 
implemented by any minor local council? The excuse will 
always be financial difficulties, but what was the fate of 
the billions presented during Bremer's era. There were many 
plans on paper which if they had found their way to reality, 
the country would have been in a completely different state 
approaching the end of the third post-war year, but these 
excuses presented by politicians seem so thin and unrelated 
to the people's interests in any way whatsoever. 
 
"Addressing the problem of the sewage system is the broadest 
slogan through which to demonstrate to Iraqis that some care 
is being devoted to public health, future generations, and 
the education sector. 
 
"Perhaps the list of Saddam's crimes should include the well 
built sewage systems established in the Green Zone alone 
which might have left current officials unaware of the 
problems facing the rest of the people. Who can step down to 
the level of the people and make the sewage system the theme 
of his electoral campaign? I don't think such politicians 
exist." 
 
KHALILZAD