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UPDATE:  Veterans for Peace Iraq Water Project                                                                                       2 June 2007

 

December 18, 2006

 

IWP Update

by Art Dorland, Chair, Iraq Water Project

 

It’s Christmastime in America as this is written and stressed out shoppers are flinging their credit cards around and fighting lines to buy expensive, advertising-induced bribes for their overindulged children.

Meanwhile in Baghdad……..

Probably the best gift the United States could give the people of Iraq---and its own soldiers--- is a withdrawal of military forces from the country and abandonment of every attempt to dictate Iraq’s economy and political future.  Veterans for Peace continues the quest to convince America that this gift must be given.  

We are also conscious of the colossal physical damage and political whirlwind unleashed upon the Iraqi people by the raw wind our country has sown.  VFP Iraq Water Project has always incorporated this consciousness in its work, both since the invasion and long before.  We owe these people not a little.

Accordingly, and in spite of every difficulty, IWP continues on.  We are, however, adjusting our approach.  Rather than sinking all funds into one treatment plant that serves a single community, we will now spread the work.  The plan is to send small, hand-transportable sterilizer units into clinics and schools throughout Iraq, concentrating first and foremost on areas where we think US forces have done the most damage, and where people are least likely to get help---Anbar province, for example.  We have already purchased and successfully delivered one such device to a hospital in al-Qaim, a city on the Euphrates trampled under the United States’ military boot in Operation River’s Gate of November 2005.  A large part of this hospital was flattened by American bombing during this operation, and you can view the damage in a video available at  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=891513925297288257.      

The device we sent to al-Qaim is called Sterilight, manufactured in Canada and available for purchase in Jordan.  Sterilight works by ultraviolet exposure, in combination with two add-on particulate filters, also included in our package.  It produces eight gallons a minute.  Total cost for this delivery was about $1500, so we should be able to place a number of these units with money we hope to have available.

IWP is very fortunate to have an Iraqi coordinator in Amman, Jordan who makes all this possible.  Faiza al-Araji is a civil engineer who for seven years was executive manager of a private firm in Baghdad that dealt in all types of water systems and water testing equipment.  Of course that was before George W. Bush decided to liberate her.  This past year Faiza was a member of an Iraqi women’s delegation sent by Global Exchange to address American audiences in a number of cities.  She is now putting her engineering experience to work assisting projects like ours to alleviate distress and disease in her own country.  If you want to get an idea of how an educated and very sophisticated Iraqi woman views the improvements our invasion has brought to Iraq, take a look at http://www.afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com .

As in the al-Qaim test run, Faiza will select and purchase on our behalf the necessary items to be sent to a designated hospital or school, and arrange transportation.  Receipts for all expenses will be mailed back to us. 

I cannot omit to mention what the reader has probably already guessed: this entire operation entails a number of unavoidable risks, principally involving transport over Iraq’s dangerous roadways.  The al-Qaim unit was sent by commercial automobile to Baghdad, where the hospital’s doctors picked it up and carried it the rest of the way in their own vehicle.  At every mile along this circuitous route there is high hazard of roadjackings, fake checkpoints, and even seizure by Iraqi or US forces.  Our first delivery got through ok, but we will surely perspire and gnaw fingertips with each shipment.  It’s unavoidable, supremely necessary, and justified---for the alternative is to do nothing.

VFP Iraq Water Project thanks everyone who has supported its work by checkbook or prayer.  We believe our new approach establishes a more direct connection between our project, our donors, and the people we manage to reach.  If you still believe in us, and are willing to bear the risks to your donation, please help us keep helping.

Wishing everyone the best in a new and faintly more hopeful year

-----Art Dorland, IWP Chair 

 

Picture of the Sterilight unit:

December 18, 2006

 

IWP Update

by Art Dorland, Chair, Iraq Water Project

 

It’s Christmastime in America as this is written and stressed out shoppers are flinging their credit cards around and fighting lines to buy expensive, advertising-induced bribes for their overindulged children.

Meanwhile in Baghdad……..

Probably the best gift the United States could give the people of Iraq---and its own soldiers--- is a withdrawal of military forces from the country and abandonment of every attempt to dictate Iraq’s economy and political future.  Veterans for Peace continues the quest to convince America that this gift must be given.  

We are also conscious of the colossal physical damage and political whirlwind unleashed upon the Iraqi people by the raw wind our country has sown.  VFP Iraq Water Project has always incorporated this consciousness in its work, both since the invasion and long before.  We owe these people not a little.

Accordingly, and in spite of every difficulty, IWP continues on.  We are, however, adjusting our approach.  Rather than sinking all funds into one treatment plant that serves a single community, we will now spread the work.  The plan is to send small, hand-transportable sterilizer units into clinics and schools throughout Iraq, concentrating first and foremost on areas where we think US forces have done the most damage, and where people are least likely to get help---Anbar province, for example.  We have already purchased and successfully delivered one such device to a hospital in al-Qaim, a city on the Euphrates trampled under the United States’ military boot in Operation River’s Gate of November 2005.  A large part of this hospital was flattened by American bombing during this operation, and you can view the damage in a video available at  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=891513925297288257.      

The device we sent to al-Qaim is called Sterilight, manufactured in Canada and available for purchase in Jordan.  Sterilight works by ultraviolet exposure, in combination with two add-on particulate filters, also included in our package.  It produces eight gallons a minute.  Total cost for this delivery was about $1500, so we should be able to place a number of these units with money we hope to have available.

IWP is very fortunate to have an Iraqi coordinator in Amman, Jordan who makes all this possible.  Faiza al-Araji is a civil engineer who for seven years was executive manager of a private firm in Baghdad that dealt in all types of water systems and water testing equipment.  Of course that was before George W. Bush decided to liberate her.  This past year Faiza was a member of an Iraqi women’s delegation sent by Global Exchange to address American audiences in a number of cities.  She is now putting her engineering experience to work assisting projects like ours to alleviate distress and disease in her own country.  If you want to get an idea of how an educated and very sophisticated Iraqi woman views the improvements our invasion has brought to Iraq, take a look at http://www.afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com .

As in the al-Qaim test run, Faiza will select and purchase on our behalf the necessary items to be sent to a designated hospital or school, and arrange transportation.  Receipts for all expenses will be mailed back to us. 

I cannot omit to mention what the reader has probably already guessed: this entire operation entails a number of unavoidable risks, principally involving transport over Iraq’s dangerous roadways.  The al-Qaim unit was sent by commercial automobile to Baghdad, where the hospital’s doctors picked it up and carried it the rest of the way in their own vehicle.  At every mile along this circuitous route there is high hazard of roadjackings, fake checkpoints, and even seizure by Iraqi or US forces.  Our first delivery got through ok, but we will surely perspire and gnaw fingertips with each shipment.  It’s unavoidable, supremely necessary, and justified---for the alternative is to do nothing.

VFP Iraq Water Project thanks everyone who has supported its work by checkbook or prayer.  We believe our new approach establishes a more direct connection between our project, our donors, and the people we manage to reach.  If you still believe in us, and are willing to bear the risks to your donation, please help us keep helping.

Wishing everyone the best in a new and faintly more hopeful year

-----Art Dorland, IWP Chair 

 

Picture of the Sterilight unit: