DAILY IRAQI WEBSITE MONITORING - November 30, 2005

UNCLAS BAGHDAD 004789 SIPDIS STATE FOR INR/R/MR, NEA/PPD, NEA/PPA, NEA/AGS, INR/IZ, INR/P E.0. 12958: N/A TAGS: OPRC KMDR KPAO IZ SUBJECT: DAILY IRAQI WEBSITE MONITORING - November 30, 2005 SUMMARY: Discussion of the lack of essential services and the neglect of the public sector in electoral campaigns is the major editorial theme of Iraqi, Arabic language websites on November 30, 2005. END SUMMARY. -------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS -------------- ¶A. "Electoral Sewage" (Iraq 4 All News, 11/30) -------------- SELECTED COMMENTARIES -------------- ¶A. "Electoral Sewage" (Editorial by Fatih Abdul Salam - Iraq 4 All News - http://iraq4all.org - Independent, based in Denmark) "Any Iraqi politician carrying a national slogan should be ashamed of himself, especially in front of the people, for all Iraqi cities without exception are turning into large flooded areas where sewage pipelines are exposed in residential neighborhoods forsaken by the ministries of health, environment, human rights, and others. "The availability of essential public services for Iraqis, to provide their children with decent living standards is the key factor for people's trust in politicians. No healthy political environment can correlate with open sewage networks feeding polluted swamps in neighborhoods and main roads in large cities, not only in small towns or cities devastated by continuous war. "Where have the significant funds dedicated to cleaning the drainage channels in southern Iraq, especially Basrah, by the former civil administrator Paul Bremer, the wrecker of Iraq, disappeared? Why are projects carried out by large ministries still lagging behind those that could be implemented by any minor local council? The excuse will always be financial difficulties, but what was the fate of the billions presented during Bremer's era. There were many plans on paper which if they had found their way to reality, the country would have been in a completely different state approaching the end of the third post-war year, but these excuses presented by politicians seem so thin and unrelated to the people's interests in any way whatsoever. "Addressing the problem of the sewage system is the broadest slogan through which to demonstrate to Iraqis that some care is being devoted to public health, future generations, and the education sector. "Perhaps the list of Saddam's crimes should include the well built sewage systems established in the Green Zone alone which might have left current officials unaware of the problems facing the rest of the people. Who can step down to the level of the people and make the sewage system the theme of his electoral campaign? I don't think such politicians exist." KHALILZAD