Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=4/14/2003

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=IRAQ / POWER PLANT (L-O)

NUMBER=2-302199

BYLINE=LAURIE KASSMAN

DATELINE=BAGHDAD

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

/// EDS: CAN BE USED AS COMPLEMENT OR ALTERNATE TO RYU REPORT ON ELECTRICITY ///

INTRO: The American military is focusing on helping to restore electricity and water to Baghdad, 10 days after the power was cut. And Iraqis are also starting to take matters into their own hands. Correspondent Laurie Kassman visited one of the city's largest power plants and filed this report.

TEXT: The Al Dura power plant services about half of Baghdad's population. It was shut down after it was partially damaged in a bombing raid, and the natural gas that gets it started was cut off, too.

Forty-year-old maintenance engineer Tony John Mateus is confident the plant can be repaired. He is not quite sure how long it will take, but he says the men who can do it are showing up for work, now that Baghdad residents are starting to venture out into the streets again. He says about half of the power plant's 500 employees have returned to see what can be done.

/// MATEUS ACT ///

I don't have any communication with them. They hear all the people who work in the electricity must return and they came. Everyone knows what he must do, so anyone come inside, he knows his job. So, if he see anything bad he repair it.

/// END ACT ///

One problem, he says, is getting the necessary spare parts, which have not been allowed into Iraq since U-N sanctions were imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait nearly 13 years ago.

The power plant was one of several that were also damaged in the 1991 Gulf War.

Brigadier General Steve Hawkins says Iraq's power infrastructure has not been functioning at full capacity since the last Gulf War.

/// OPT /// General Hawkins has brought in a team of engineers to work with local experts to see what can be done to kick-start the electricity plant and get the power back on.

///HAWKINS ACT // OPT ACT ///

Their infrastructure had some issues to begin with. Earlier on, it wasn't necessarily all that robust. We estimated only about 70 percent of the country's power supply, for example, ever got back together after the last Gulf War. And so, what we're doing is not just making assessments. We're rolling up our sleeves right now, with the center sector of the country's key people who work the power industry, the refineries, because they are all inter-connected in providing goods and services back and forth for the system to work.

/// END ACT // END OPT ///

Maintenance engineer Tony Mateus says firing up the plant is a problem, because the natural gas pipeline that feeds into the plant appears to be cut. And he says there is not enough diesel fuel to keep the power plant in operation for more than a few days.

Mr. Mateus, with the bleary-eyed look of exhaustion worn by most Iraqis these days, says he spent every day of the war inside the plant where he has worked for the past 16 years.

Ten men from the neighborhood and few other employees also kept vigil through the night to make sure looters did not get inside.

He says there was a bit of looting, mostly by youngsters.

/// SOUND OF TRUCK AND FADE TO ARABIC AND FADE ///

Nasser Ghali has been a driver at the electricity plant for more than four years. He says people spread the word, and now the looters are returning what they stole -- mostly office furniture.

So, he has spent his first day back at work driving through the neighborhood retrieving stolen chairs and desks, lamps and other items. He says the two neighborhood mosques helped spread the word.

Muslim cleric Hossein Mustafa says he and other religious leaders are using mosque loudspeakers and prayer time sermons to send a clear message the looting has to stop.

/// MUSTAFA ARABIC AND FADE TO TRANSLATOR ///

We try to remind everybody, even the wives and everybody. The wives are essential in the house. They send a signal to the kids, to everybody, to their brothers, to their husbands that what you are doing is against your religion.

/// END ACT ///

The religious leader says people are bringing other stolen goods to the mosque so they can be returned to their rightful owners.

/// REST OPT ///

So, on Monday afternoon, office furniture was being trucked back into the Al Dura power plant past two U-S army tanks positioned outside for security. And the power station's workers were walking through the iron gate to see what they could do to help turn the city lights back on. (Signed)

NEB/LMK/KL/TW/FC