JOURNAL: Cascades in Iraq

Global guerrillas are getting extremely adept at attacking systems. Iraq was hit with a multi-infrastructure cascade of failure on Tuesday. Saboteurs blew up oil pipelines at a juncture where they cross the Tigris River (co-location dependency -- See Infrastructure Meltdowns for more). This cut exports via Turkey. The pipelines also feed the nearby Beiji power plant (input and mutual dependency). The oil flowed down onto the water and created a sea of flaming oil. The Beiji plant was immediately shut down due to fears of fire spreading to the plant (update, it is claimed an adjacent cable shorted and shut down the powerplant). This rapid shutdown resulted in a wave of cascading electrical failures throughout the entire country (see Cascading System Failure for more). At one point the ALL of Iraq was without power.

This attack demonstrates a qualitative improvement in system attacks, the quantitative improvement can be seen in the attached graphic from Brookings. Oil exports are a mere ~60% of stated goals (and still below pre-war levels). Total losses from oil system disruption now exceed $2 billion. Electricity production is likely (no good data is available, but anecdotal information is available) half of demand -- not nearly enough to support economic revival. Other resources: "Iraq: Electricity Disruption" "JOURNAL: More on Iraqi Electricity"

Comments

[hound]

This seems incredible. Why couldnt the CPA or now the Iraqi Governing Council get personnel to protect their natural resources and, in effect national treasure?

[Patrick]

Your comment on electricity is overly pessimistic: The current production in electricity is over 5000MW which is 20% above pre-war ... that this is 'below demand' is merely a function of Iraq's booming economy, added satellite dishes, etc., generating previously nonexistent demand.

See
Persevering to preserve the grid

Moreover, the terrorists hit the absolute jackpot - by attacking an oil pipeline that melted the main power line from the Bayji Electricity Plant near, they were able to shut the entire Iraqi grid down in early September ... for a while. Within 6 hours, most of the country was restored; within 2 days, full power restored:

Power grid restored

The real story is not that terrorists are attacking infrastructure, it's that despite those attacks, the infrastructure continues to actually improve. The electricity situation has improved markedly in the last 6 months, for example.

Having a 'network-centric' view of this global war on terror conflict, you can appreciate that there are resiliencies on both sides - technical, organizational, redundancies.

Wild Philosophic Comment: Our ability to win is centered on our (American, coalition, freedom-based civilization)
greater ability to adapt, that leads into a greater overall resiliency and survivability. ie Freedom Works!

WRT:
"This seems incredible. Why couldnt the CPA or now the Iraqi Governing Council get personnel to protect their natural resources and, in effect national treasure?"

you assume because bank robberies happen that there are no security guards at banks? In fact, thousands of personnel are protecting Iraqi infrastructure. CPA and IGC are now superceded by the Iraqi Govt itself. And there are numerous instances of Iraqi and US forces stopping attempted attacks of all types.

[Patrick]

My links seem not to have worked. Nevertheless, I linked to this fascinating blog from my own blog "Liberating Iraq", found here:

http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com

[Patrick]

2nd pass at the link wrt the terrorist power grid outage and restoration:
http://freedomstruth.blogspot.com/2004/09/power-grid-is-back-above-5000-mw.html

[John Robb]

Ok, pre-war levels of electricity were 4,400 megawatts. Don't confuse capacity with deliveries. While the capacity may be 5,000 our ability to deliver it has been interdicted. See to the averages of previous months:

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/06/iraq_electricit.html