THEN AND NOW

WOLFOWITZ: We'll get the electricity fixed. (9/9/2003)

REALITY:

U.S. drops Baghdad electricity reports
The daily length of time that residents have power has dropped.
The figure is considered a key indicator of quality of life.
By Noam N. Levey and Alexandra Zavis,
LA Times Staff Writers
July 27, 2007

...the Bush administration... has stopped reporting to Congress a key quality-of-life indicator in Baghdad: how long the power stays on.

Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week that Baghdad residents could count on only "an hour or two a day" of electricity. That's down from an average of five to six hours a day earlier this year. Crocker told CBS News this month that electricity was "more important to the average Iraqi than all 18 benchmarks rolled up into one."

The State Department's new method shows that the national electricity supply is 4% lower than a year ago, according to the July 11 report.

"The main reasons have to do with continued attacks by insurgents against electrical transmission lines and against fuel pipelines that provide the energy source that you need to generate electricity," Crocker told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"Here we are in the fifth year, and we simply have not greatly improved the quality of life," said Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), who has called on the president to draw up a plan for a withdrawal. "It's very troubling."