Because some people don’t like where it’s flowing.
My last post defended Riverbend. By following a few links, which led to more links, I ended up at an old page from Iraq the Model. It’s dated Sept 2004, and accuses Riverbend of lying about the electricity supply.
I can’t check all the facts. But I could check one:
Riverbend’s cliam — A few days ago, most of Baghdad was in the dark for over 24 hours and lately, on our better days, we get about 12 hours of electricity.
ITM’s claim — A straight out lie, as we get 16-18 hours of electricity per day on our worst days, while on our best days we get 20 hours per day, lately
Neither gives a source for their data. Google turned up Tim Lambert who gives the Brookings Institution as his source. Here is the Iraq Index for Dec 2004 (PDF). Its numbers match with Tim’s table.
Average hours of electricity (nationwide) for Aug/Sept 2004 — 13 hours a day, for both months.
Of course, that’s only the average. But ITM says 16-18 hours on the worst days, 20 on a good day. He has to be wrong. (Lying, maybe. But who am I to say?) Riverbend’s estimate is not so clearly contradicted. Because her number is an estimate. I doubt she measured everything with a watch and kept a log. And she says “about”.
Of course, the average doesn’t tell us the range. It may be that a good day had 20 hours of electricity, not about 12. But ITM’s credibility as an accuser is certainly damaged.
BTW, if you want the figures for this year’s electricity supply, taken from the PDF on the BI homepage (figures collected Apr 25 2007):
Month — hrs per day (nationwide) (Baghdad)
January —— 8.0 — 4.4
February —– 9.3 — 6.0
March ——- 10.9 — 6.0
April ——— 11.7 — 5.8
I don’t know which neighborhoods Riverbend and ITM live in, but I’d be willing to hazard a guess that the power supply is not uniform across Baghdad. I do wonder about the optimism of ITM, but it is kind of nice to see hope, even misguided hope, triumph over adversity.
By: decline and fall on May 4, 2007
at 3:50 am
Well there is that. However, the topic was Baghdad — though the personal pronoun may have brought things down to district. Of course it’s natural for people to extrapolate from what they saw themselves. But to then accuse another of an outright lie without doing more than looking in your own backyard is somewhat lazy thinking.
By: misterlister on May 4, 2007
at 9:13 am