Did anyone see Paul Bremer say that electricity was back to pre-war level

When he had his press briefing with Bush yesterday, I thought I heard him say this? If so, why does Frank Luntz, Ralph Reed, and the lot wish to have pictures of the electricity "success" in Iraq? Since we didn't bomb the power grids in Iraq, why did it take us 6 months to get it back to where it was when we invaded? Should that really be labeled a "success"? And according to Newsweeks magazine, many of the hospitals still have no electricity and wounded sleep on the floor. What pretty pictures do they wish us to see?

edited for spelling

people here were crowded round the tv watching the iraqis celebrating their liberation

and then on the internet we learn it was staged and shot to look as if massive crowds were there

truth does not matter .... just the image

eom

While Rumsfeld (who I heard * calls Rums-stud, ugh) was waxing poetic about the joyous Iraqis enjoying their newfound freedom, looters/Iraqi military/the liberated were pulling apart the electrical system of the country. They pulled down the towers with pickup trucks to get at the copper, pulled the wiring out of anything they could get their hands on, and walked off with computers and whatever they could carry in a semi.

Pre-war electricity may be the same output, but it's now going to more places. That level of output used to just be concentrated in Baghdad, now it's being distributed to more places. Ergo, less electricity in the "Sunni Triangle" and more in other areas.

Of course we trashed some of it, but we let what was there get pilfered.

spending in Iraq), they said that while the electricity had briefly (only recently) been restored to the pre-bombing capacity, it had since dropped back a bit, and that outages were still common.

"You say that more schools and hospitals are open and operating." Well why did we BOMB schools and hospitals? Isn't this against the Geneva Convention?

Makes me sick :puke: