Iraq Water Project
Veterans for Peace, an international service organization founded by former United States military personnel, for many years has been advancing peaceful and workable solutions to political conflicts that engage our country around the world.
Prior to the US juggernaut against Baghdad last spring, the VFP Iraq Water Project rebuilt six municipal and rural water treatment plants in southern and central Iraq that re-introduced some 100,000 deprived people to the life- preserving luxury of safe household water. During the thirteen years that United Nations sanctions corroded and destroyed Iraq’s public services, hundreds of thousands of people perished from the effects of contaminated water. Our six water plants helped reduce the number of these victims.
One important aspect of our project was to make Americans aware of the devastating effect of US policy on the ordinary people of Iraq. In that regard, the recent shock-and-awe assault upon the country has done our work for us, and no one who reads halfway reliable news accounts can be unaware of the chaotic and dire conditions prevailing throughout Iraq today. At this point at least, few Iraqis are feeling in any way rewarded by their country’s new status as an American dependency.
Of course now our Washington administration is proclaiming its intention to remake the desolate land into a new Garden of Eden, a shining political model to be advanced before all eyes as a no strings gift of purehearted America. Pardon our skepticism back here at VFP, but we don’t trust the motivations.
As you know, gigantic US corporations with moneyed tentacles wrapped around the heart of Washington have been awarded the tyrannosaurus share of reconstruction contracts. What does that mean for the people of Iraq? We at VFP suspect an unstated agenda of massive privatization of public services, a scheme that exactly fits the political silhouette of our present administration.
One US company that will be heavily involved in infrastructure restoration is Bechtel. In the case of water systems, it is possible they will have the exclusive contract. It is useful to know that Bechtel was recently expelled from Bolivia after taking possession of public water services, and then raising rates to a level beyond the reach of the poor. Bechtel is now suing impoverished Bolivia for millions of dollars in lost profits.
The Iraq Water Project has quite a different agenda. Our entire purpose is to benefit the people of Iraq, not shareholders, not free-market ideologues. Once again we find ourselves at ethical dagger points with our own government. If in fact privatization is the future being offered the desperate Iraqi people, we hope to make our little collection of water treatment plants a demonstration of a very different way of doing things. We plan to be noticed.
Our six plants suffered various levels of damage during the March and April conflict, both from war and looting. We need to raise a substantial sum of money to bring these facilities back to reliable service and keep them going. We hope that you will consider joining our effort. Thousands of Iraqi civilians in the areas serviced by our plants will be pulled back from the brink of a health disaster if we succeed.
As before, work on the ground will be contracted and supervised by LIFE for Relief and Development, an American Islamic charity that has toiled tirelessly in Iraq for a decade. LIFE tenaciously stayed on in Baghdad throughout the war and was one of the first NGOs plunging into the dangerous chaos of reconstruction when the bombing ceased. In the past several years VFP sent member delegations to Iraq to work with the LIFE engineers and the local employees in rebuilding the plants. If our physical labors were less than critical to the success of the work, nevertheless the experience provided a wonderful opportunity for ordinary Americans and Iraqis to get to know one another, another of the important goals of the Iraq Water Project.
Veterans for Peace is convinced that military intimidation and violence are more likely to aggravate than resolve political conflict. It is one of our founding principals. We know that countless Americans, just like millions of people around the world, share this vision.
Masses of us marched together for peace, which we were denied. The bombs fell heavy upon our hopes. We will now do everything we can to encourage a just peace in Iraq and a viable future for its people.
The Iraq Water Project is intended, as it was before, to become a model for a sustainable and independent life in that desert land. It is our model, not the suspect Bush neoimperial version. And just as important, it will also serve a more immediate and pressing purpose: it will save lives.
