Cablegate: Daily Iraqi Website Monitoring - November 30, 2005
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
301730Z Nov 05
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
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