The Great Iraqi Generator Fiasco

Business Insider has recently published an article by Jeremy Bender titled "This broken 700-ton generator demonstrates everything that went wrong with the reconstruction of Iraq." Bender tells the history of an American attempt to install a new electric generator in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk: " the US Agency for International Development (USAID) bought a $50 million Siemens V94 generator which was designated for a new power plant in Kirkuk. It was supposed to single-handed increase Iraq's power generation by six 6%."

Then everything went wrong. According to Bender:

Since the 700-ton generator was too heavy to airlift to its final destination, MOAG was first transported by sea to the Syrian port of Tartous. From Tartous it was driven to the Tishrim Dam east of Aleppo at a painstakingly slow speed of five miles per hour. But the Syrians refused to allow the generator to cross the dam in retaliation for US sanctions on the country.

Moving an apparatus like that would have been a challenge even in a country with a developed road system. Trying it in war-torn countries without good infrastructure and the results can be devastating.

Bender continues " USAID was forced to reroute MOAG overland through Syria to Jordan. To reach Kirkuk from the Jordan, the generator would be forced pass through the Iraqi province of Anbar, the center of the ongoing Sunni insurgency. Instability in the province necessitated that the generator's movement be delayed as a "single Kalashnikov round could destroy it."

The saga continued: "This rerouting caused the generator to sit on the Jordanian border for all of 2004 and the first three months of 2005. James Stephenson, a veteran member of USAID, notes in his book Losing The Golden Hour how the generator's delivery was further delayed until after the battle of Fallujah and the subsequent clearing of insurgents. Moving the generator before the city was pacified — with its maximum convoy speed of five miles per hour — would have given the insurgents an easy and very tempting target. But the costs of protecting the generator in Jordan ran around $20,000 a day in private security fees, Johnson notes . "

We finally reach the conclusion: By April 2, 2005, MOAG finally reached its destination in Kirkuk after a 640-mile journey through Iraq, with 250 to 300 military personnel accompanying MOAG alongside Humees and a number of helicopters. "

But it was all for nothing: "[N]obody had bothered to train the Iraqi plant workers in the operations and maintenance of this state-of-the-art generator," Johnson told The Daily Beast. "So, months after it was handed over in a triumphant ribbon-cutting ceremony, the generator was broken."

The problem wasn't simply bad planning or execution: the US has made so many enemies in that region that it can't even do the simplest things anymore. Just thinking about it gives you a headache.