--- steve philion <philion at hawaii.edu> wrote:
>
>
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-goslow27jul27,1,
> 7069048.story?coll=la-home-headlines
>
> Inefficiency Compounded by Idleness in Iraq
> Factory workers sit around. Garbage collectors
> don't pick up the trash. The
> lack of initiative slows recovery and deepens
> discontent
>
> By John Daniszewski, Times Staff Writer
>
>
> BAGHDAD -- It is 1 o'clock on a Thursday afternoon
> at the gates to the State
> Enterprise for Electrical Industries, and the
> workers have gone home. What
> about the managers? Out. Is even one technician left
> inside? The guards
> shake their heads: of course not.
>
> Granted, it's 110 degrees outside, and the weekend -
> Friday and Saturday in
> Iraq - is just around the corner. But knocking off
> work early is routine in
> postwar Baghdad. At the sprawling plant, the day
> begins at 9 a.m., and the
> workers who do show up are out the door by noon.
>
> And granted, some things are beyond the workers'
> control - the lack of
> functioning infrastructure for electricity, water
> pressure,
> telecommunications and finance. But the
> lackadaisical attitude also seems to
> be a byproduct of the national mood - shock and
> depression - since the
> country's centralized system was upended by the
> Americans' advance.
>
> Whether intentional or incidental, the work slowdown
> has hampered efforts of
> occupation authorities to begin rebuilding Iraq.
>
>
> ATTACHMENT part 2 image/gif name=blackpix.gif
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com