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Backgrounder: Iraq's Faltering Infrastructure

Council on Foreign Relations

Author: Lionel Beehner, Staff Writer
June 22, 2006

Introduction

Three years after the fall of Saddam, many Iraqis still lack basic amenities like potable water, regularly endure power outages, and have yet to fully benefit from their country's immense oil wealth. "Efforts to rebuild Iraq are failing," says Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), a leading Democratic critic of Bush administration reconstruction efforts. "We've spent $2 billion and the situation is worse than when we arrived." With triple-digit temperatures fast approaching, "the amount of electricity has to improve for people to survive," said Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari in a June 16 CFR meeting. Although security remains Iraqis' foremost concern, one out of every three Iraqis say restoring infrastructure—not job creation, amending the constitution, or expelling U.S. troops—should be the government's top priority, according to a March 2006 International Republican Institute poll.

How is the quality of life for average Iraqis?

Iraq's human development indicators are among the lowest in the Middle East, according to the World Bank. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, Iraq led the Middle East in development of infrastructure, social services, and health care. Yet after years of successive wars and sanctions, many Iraqis today do not have access to basic staples like potable water and electricity. A shortage of hospitals and health-care facilities has added to their hardships. Current health statistics on Iraq are difficult to find, but a UNICEF report said Iraq's mortality rate for children under five rose from 5 percent in 1990 to 12.5 percent in 2004.

Of 142 health clinics slated for construction with $180 million in U.S. funds, only six have been built so far, according to a recent report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), a U.S.-funded independent oversight office. Water access also remains limited.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.