More then a million could die? How large a displacement of the populace are we really talkin?Ethnic cleansing to the extreme? I wouldn't discount it, that's for sure.Since when do war makers and imperialists concern themselves with the puny little lives of the masses? They can use them and abuse them. That's just reality. When psychopaths rule the world.And we allow it to go on.The very latestItaly's Trevi Signs Deal to Repair Mosul Dam After U.S. Warning
An Italian engineering company will oversee repairs to Iraq’s largest dam, which the U.S. embassy in Baghdad said this week could fail catastrophically with little warning.Trevi Finanziaria Industriale S.p.A. signed a contract with Iraqi officials to work on the Mosul Dam on Wednesday, the Italian Foreign Affairs Ministry said in an e-mailed statement. State-run Iraqiya television said the deal was worth 273 million euros.In an advisory on Monday, the U.S. Embassy warned of a possible dam collapse. It said the northern city of Mosul, which is still controlled by Islamic State, could be inundated by as much as 70 feet (21 meters) of water within hours of a breach. Flood waters could even reach Baghdad, about 200 miles (321 kilometers) further down the Tigris, it said, adding there was “no specific information that indicates when a breach might occur.”
Flashback to anonymous commenter
AnonymousDecember 18, 2015 at 7:52 AMAnd why is Italy sending troops to defend the Mosul dam?http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/12053500/Ital… this a water play on Baghdad? Form the 2014 dam assualt..http://www.ibtimes.com/mosul-dam-why-us-aided-kurdish-forces-recapture-… ironic that it was saddam era officers who melted away in Mosul and are alleged to eb running the logistics in view of the Kurd/ISIS truce in Mosulhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3190314/The-secret-ISIS-s-succe…
There have been troops at Mosul Dam for months now-Many of them Italian Troops aka NATO troops. Many of them Kurdish fighters. What have they been doing? By that I mean- What have they been really doing at Mosul Dam?1,000 Italian fighters sent to protect Mosul Dam
The member of the Agriculture and Water Committee in the Iraqi Council Mansour al-Baeigi revealed the presence of one thousand Italian soldiers to protect Mosul Dam, while considered the American media exaggeration as a tool to bring foreign troops into Iraq.Baeigi told reporters, “Based on our information, there are 1000 Italian soldiers in Nineveh Province to protect Mosul Dam, as well as the Italian experts who are treating the decay in the dam’s floor.”Baeigi added, “The United States uses media exaggeration to bring foreign troops into Iraq and to hinder the liberation of Mosul.”
And yes, the American have impeded the liberation of Mosul. Why?Kurds have retaken strategic dam from ISIS militants- August 18/2014That puts the Mosul dam in Kurdish/NATO hands for 20 months now- what's been going on there all this time?
Kurdish forces say they have retaken a strategic Mosul dam from militants of the Islamic State, apparently dealing the Sunni jihadist group its first major reversal since its forces swept into Iraq in June.NPR's Peter Kenyon, who is in northern Iraq, tells our Newscast unit that the Kurds were backed by expanded U.S. airstrikes on the militants. He says: "The American Central Command says it continued airstrikes in Iraq against Islamist targets, and Kurdish peshmerga forces moved to retake the dam. Local peshmerga commanders say they gained control of the dam, but senior officials say some fighting is still going on, as well as efforts to neutralize booby traps left by the Islamist fighters calling themselves the Islamic State."
Could the US have damaged the Mosul dam, accidentally, on purpose?
The statement added that since Aug. 8, Central Command has carried out 68 airstrikes in Iraq, including 35 near the Mosul Dam.
Repeating:
The statement added that since Aug. 8, Central Command has carried out 68 airstrikes in Iraq, including 35 near the Mosul Dam.
Engineers fear Mosul dam collapse could kill 'more than a million'A Kurdish peshmerga soldier stands guard near the Mosul dam on 1 February (AFP)
“If the dam fails, the water will arrive in Mosul in four hours. It will arrive in Baghdad in 45 hours. Some people say there could be half a million people killed, some say a million. I imagine it will be more in the absence of a good evacuation plan.”"The [contingency] plan is a routine warning to educate people about this issue, so people will be sure that everything will be okay."Iraq's Ministry of Water Resources, which is in charge of the country’s dams, has also played concerns and argued that similar warnings had been issued in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
“The dam will be safe as long as the water level is low,” it said.
But an extensive investigation conducted earlier this month by the parliamentary committee of water and agriculture concluded that water levels were expected to rise significantly in March and April and that the “stress on the dam will be increased”.
So best case scenario for the dam collapse would be before the water rises too much.Row over the Mosul Dam From February 4/2016- Notice how all warning are coming from the Americans, while the Iraqis think it's much ado about nothing- Interesting. After reading this one could also say thanks to the US and it's multiple invasions, it's sanctions regime, it's incessant war making and bombing they virtually guaranteed the destruction of this vital dam anyway
Of all its multiple problems and daunting challenges, Iraq is probably now facing its most serious existential threat, a catastrophe that could cause more damage and deaths than all Iraq’s communal conflicts, political chaos and economic hardships put together.
The only problem is that the warning is coming from top American officials, and too many Iraqis, including in the government, are taking it with a pinch of salt.
For months US officials have been warning of the possibility that Iraq’s Mosul Dam, the country’s largest water reservoir, is at risk of bursting, triggering prophesies of doom in a country already beset by a war against brutal terror groups and threats of secession by its Kurdish minority.
The months of warnings, while in the hands of US/NATO/Kurdish militias is interesting
Last week, the top US general in Iraq, lieutenant-general Sean MacFarland, said the potential collapse of the Mosul Dam in northern Iraq could send a surge of water down the heavily populated Tigris River valley, sweeping away all before it.
“The likelihood of the dam collapsing is something we are trying to determine right now... All we know is when it goes, it’s going to go fast, and that’s bad,” MacFarland told reporters in Baghdad.
US state department officials have warned that up to 500,000 people could be killed and more than a million left homeless should Iraq’s Mosul Dam burst due to insufficient maintenance.
What's been going on there since 2014- When the US and Kurdish backed miltias took over. What are the Italian troops doing all these months?
Even US President Barack Obama has intervened to highlight the need to make emergency repairs to avoid a tragedy. In a telephone call to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi, Obama reportedly told the Iraqi leader that he was having nightmares caused by fears of the Mosul Dam collapsing.
Obama having nightmares? Doubtful.
According to American officials, rising water levels in April, the annual rainy season which is also characterised by melting snow, could lead to a breach of the dam. Another scenario suggests that the dam could burst in the summer or autumn when the water level is lower.
The 32-year-old dam is the Middle East’s fourth-largest in reservoir capacity. Inaugurated in 1984 during the rule of former president Saddam Hussein, the 3.6-km long dam was designed to reinvigorate agriculture and energy in vast areas of the Tigris River valley.
It was named the Saddam Dam before the name was changed to the Mosul Dam after the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.
With a capacity of about 11 billion cubic metres, the dam is a vital source of water and hydro-electric power for millions of Iraqis. It is a key part of Iraq’s national power grid, with four 200 megawatt (MW) turbines generating 320 MW of electricity a day
Most of the power is to provide electricity to some two million residents of Mosul and other cities in Iraq’s Nineveh Province.
However, soon after it was built by an Italian and German consortium, Iraqi engineers discovered structural flaws in the Dam. It was built on water-soluble gypsum, which causes seepage. The resulting erosion creates cavities beneath the dam’s foundations that must be plugged on a regular basis or the dam will fail. Over the years there has been a steady grouting and constant repairs schedule to maintain the structure and prevent the dam from crumbling. However, the maintenance work was badly affected by the crippling UN sanctions imposed on Iraq following Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
A major problem was the difficulty of importing the microfine cement grout needed to be injected into the foundations with water under pressure. Western countries claimed that this kind of cement could be used to build or repair airstrips at military bases, listing it as a material susceptible to sanctions.
So, the US denied Iraq the necessary cement to repair the dam
However, Iraqi technicians succeeded in producing a low-quality remedial material in shabby factories that was used for grouting the dam. As a result, its deterioration increased.
After the US-led invasion in 2003, the dam fell into disrepair as a result of neglect, violence and corruption. The US Occupation Authority said it spent some $27 million to help shore up the dam but made “little or no progress”.
And then the US invasion exacerbated the situation
The recent crisis began in 2014 after Islamic State (IS) militants briefly captured the dam before Kurdish Peshmergas forces took control of the dam with the surrounding territories that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) now claims as part of the independent state it plans to establish in northern Iraq.
Iraqi officials, meanwhile, have been giving contradictory accounts of the problems faced by the dam and if there is any danger of collapse.
The Ministry of Water Resources says efforts are constantly being made to improve the basic grouting of the dam. It said its experts were working closely with the US Army Corps of Engineers to maintain the dam.
In a statement on Saturday, the ministry said it had not registered any indications of the dam’s collapse through the 96 seismic sensors it has installed in the dam area.
But other officials say Iraqi engineers cannot perform the needed maintenance. Among key hurdles, they suggest, are a lack of resources because of budget shortfalls due to the slump in oil prices and poor security in the area which makes it difficult to send workers and materials to the site of the dam.
It is unclear, however, what the government has in mind to deal with the dire situation at the dam. Critics accuse it of lacking transparency in dealing with the problem and being in a state of denial.
They also blame the government for having no contingency plans to deal with the kind of flooding that would follow the failure of the dam and no early warning system that would help millions of civilians to evacuate endangered areas.
According to US media, if the dam bursts over half a million Iraqis could die from the flooding and subsequent water shortages. The flood created by the collapse would be about five metres high when it reaches Baghdad.
Reports about the possible failure of the dam have caused a stir in Iraq. Many politicians and officials blame the Americans for exaggerating the problem and triggering unnecessary alarm.
Among theories circulating in Baghdad is that the Americans are inflating the likelihood of the dam’s collapse in order to justify the much-talked-about political agenda of portioning Iraq.
According to this scenario, the KRG, the de facto power which is policing the dam, could be charged with overall responsibility for the facility. Some say it may be part of a plan to justify the offensive that US forces would join to take back Mosul from IS. A flood alarm could help to scare residents into fleeing the city before an attack.
Still, many Iraqi politicians believe that international business deals and possibly graft are involved.
There have been reports that the Italian company the Trevi Group is negotiating a deal to repair the dam and upgrade its 750 MW electricity generating plant at a cost of $2 billion. Yet, there has been no news of finalising a contract with Baghdad.
In December, the Italian government announced it was sending 450 troops to help Iraq guard the Mosul Dam. The troops would provide security for the Italian firm against IS militants located in Mosul around 25 km to the south of the facility.
Several Iraqi politicians have recently gone public about graft cases related to repair work at the dam site over recent years.
Bahaa Al-Aaraji, a Shia politician and former deputy prime minister, accused Minister of Higher Education Hussein Shahristani, in charge of the energy sector in the previous government, of ordering a halt to maintenance on the dam “because he wanted to give the contract to a company” of his choice.
Experts had suggested another company do the work, Al-Aaraji told Iraqi TV station Al-Sumeria on Saturday. Viyan Khalil, a Kurdistan Democratic Party MP, has accused current minister of irrigation and water resources Muhsen Al-Shamari of trying to blackmail companies which have made offers to repair the dam.
While Iraq struggles to survive its other existential challenges, the Mosul Dam controversy seems to be another classic cloak-and-dagger episode in the country’s never-ending dramas.
The American leadership has taken a series of actions that have virtually guaranteed the destruction of this dam, anyway! - If the win was big enough for their agenda, I could see them enacting a MIHOP destruction of the damThey (US/NATO/Israel) could, of course, blame it all on ISIS