http://www.latimes.com/la-na-iraqpower27jul27,0,705711.story?coll=la-home-center
July 27, 2007
Los Angeles Times
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
Times Staff Writers
WASHINGTON -- As the Bush administration struggles to convince
lawmakers that its Iraq war strategy is working, it 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.
But that piece of data has not been sent to lawmakers for months
because the State Department, which prepares a weekly "status report"
for Congress on conditions in Iraq, stopped estimating in May how many
hours of electricity Baghdad residents typically receive each day.
Instead, the department now reports on the electricity generated
nationwide, a measurement that does not indicate how much power Iraqis
in Baghdad or elsewhere actually receive.
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