Somewhat off topic, but relating directly to the appointment of Gen. Petraeus -- Does anyone know how it is that the Senate gets to vote on an army theater commander? He's not a cabinet secretary or a Federal judge. Back in WWII, there were no Senate hearings about Eisenhower, or MacArthur, or Nimitz. I would have thought that Petraeus' appointment would have been strictly at the discretion of the President, as Commander in Chief, and presumably of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

I don't know. Wasn't it co-option, not killing that had US GIs sitting with their feet up, eating ice-cream cones on main street in the middle of the Sunni Triangle a few years back?

Oh wait-- that was before the aspoken "killing" option was so incredibly succesful at Falujah.

Umbriel, #1

The Senate did not vote on Petraeus's assignment, but on his promotion from 3-star to 4-star general. The Consitution requires confirmation of the appointment of all "officers of the United States," and so even when I was commissioned a second lieutenant the Senate voted to confirm it (it voted on the entire slate of new officers all at one time, not individually). It's pretty routine for a new 4-star nominee to go before the Senate to testify about his new assignment, even in peacetime. The Congress controls how many 4-star commands there are (as indeed it controls how many active-duty officers there are of any rank) and so the Senate has the prerogative of hearing from the nominee in person before confirming the promotion. This is as it should be. However, if the Senate had not confirmed Petraeus for some reason, he would not have been able to take command in Iraq, either.

Another illustration: the transfer of a present 4-star admiral from CINC of US Pacific Command to take over CENTCOM. No Senate vote on that because no promotion is involved, and the president has Constitutional authority to assign existing 4-stars as he wishes.

SAO, # 2,

You, sir, are simply an idiot. It's sooooo much easier to snark than think, isn't it?

In fact, the "killing" option was incredibly succesful at Fallujah. My son was stationed in Fallujah the next year and it was the most peaceful city in the country.

Grow up. Learn something.

SAO, there's a good case to be made that had we not pulled back at the last minute when we had Falluja surrounded the first time, due to political pressure from many in this country as well as in Iraq, that second battle would not have required nearly so much destruction and death.

That said, Donald is right - at base, war is what you do when political means fail and that means both killing some people and breaking some things.

In the case of the insurgency and its abetters, it's none too damned soon.

I don't know if other people have seen this, but there is a nice graphic and proposed model for analyzing Iraq at the Small Wars Journal Blog No grand answers; nothing revolutionary. Just a very convenient way to frame things.

Thank you , Mr. Sensing. I'll chalk up my confusion to lazy-reporting-as-usual.

If I could make one command decision for our nation right now I would rush every American resource we can bring to bear to provide enough electricity to give every Iraqi 24 hours worth- instead of the average 3 or 4 they are enjoying right now in most places.

We are looking for a major change of fortune to coincide with this surge? How about not watching the Iraqis subjected to another summer in the desert with no electricity?

Nibras Kazmi? You mean the guy associated with Chalabi?

Hmm - somehow I don't think he is a neutral observer, do you? So the claim that the "insurgents are exhausted" needs more backup. Otherwise, it is assertion without reality.

""Securing the population" = "kill the insurgents."

Sure, sounds great - but who is who? That is the real question, isn't it? I've said this before, but it's not as if you can easily distinguish who is who.

Take this story

The brazen assault, 50 miles south of Baghdad on Jan. 20, was conducted by nine to 12 militants posing as an American security team. They traveled in black GMC Suburban vehicles -- the type used by U.S. government convoys -- had American weapons, wore new U.S. military combat fatigues, and spoke English.

That's a huge problem, and you gloss over it.

"The upshot of this is that now there is no significant insurgency in Iraq except al Qaeda."

This statement is based on the weak assertions above, and so the conclusionis similarly weak. Also, doesn't deal at all with the sectarian militias killing each other at a rapid pace.

That conclusion is a flatly untrue statement.

Mark, the MAIN reasons those Iraqis have only limited and intermittent electricity are:

(1) Insurgent sabotage - regular and ongoing - of the power grid
(2) Old and counterproductive habits on the part of Iraqi employees

Let me give an example of the latter, as described by a LtCol I know who worked this issue in Iraq for 2 years. US comes to a key city area. Builds a new power station, being careful to subcontract most of the work locally. Trains engineers, technicians etc. in the operation and maintenance of the station.

Iraqis refuse to do preventive maintenance. Refuse to log power fluctuations. Refuse to maintain subsidiary equipment designed to buffer surges/dips due to problems elsewhere in the grid. Oh, I don't mean openly refuse. I just mean that if the troops didn't do it for them or watch over them like a hawk (which is demeaning and a source of anger) they would ..... drink tea. Go home. Sell the spare parts on the black market. Just about any and every behavior you could imagine EXCEPT care for and run what was given to them.

So we tried a different approach in another area. Rebuild and patch what was in place that the locals were familiar with. Again, hire locals for the work. Supply the materials at our cost (or in some villages sell them through the headman so he can take his cut). Same deal, except that there was no real attempt at maintenance and the materials got stolen not only from the spares but from working equipment too.

Now, so long as the insurgents are allowed to continually sabotage the power grid, there's no way to deal with (2). But where the insurgents aren't active, we've seen progress in having the local leaders hold the employees accountable.

You want power? Deal with the insurgents.

Umbriel (& Donald),

Donald's description was correct as far as it goes. Each officer promoted each step along the way is approved by the Senate (confirmation of the promotion list). This is, for the most part, a pro forma issue for officers below General Officer level. However, there is an additional requirement for senior General Officers/Admirals. Assignments, as well as the promotions associated with them, for Lieutenant General and General (3-star, 4-star, respectively) must specifically be confirmed by the Senate after ssubmission of the nominees by the SECDEF. A G.O. at that level can only be placed in the desired assignment after the Senate confirms (approves) the assignment. That is why even Admiral Fallon will have to go through confirmation hearings. Lateral moves to positions calling for the same rank at that level(3- and 4-stars) require a reconfirmation of the rank and assignment to the new position. These are obviously not mere pro forma approvals/confirmations.

Insurgent sabotage doesnt explain the production problems very well. This article describes the real issues extremely well- and mismanagement, corruption, abject stupidity, and mainly a total lack of anyone overseeing anything (accountability) is the biggest culprit by far. Read the whole thing. Its absolutely enlightening and i cant begin to sum it all up.

Yes, insurgents blow up fuel pipelines and stupid employees and Iraqi management botch things, but what you are missing is that BOTH THOSE ISSUES ARE ENTIRELY WITHIN OUR POWER TO CORRECT. Power plants and refineries can be built directly over oil fields if needs be. A crew of American engineers can walk in and take over a building. But someone has to be responsible and have the authority to make those decisions.

Here's a great example from the IEEE article, it describes a plant with that is running at a fraction of capacity because they cant get enough fuel to run their brand new high tech turbines. Instead they are IMPORTING truck loads of Turkish diesel... when there is a natural gas terminal literally across the street.

"At Quds, though, no long pipeline is needed, because the gas comes out of the ground literally across the street from the power plant. So yet another project, called the East Baghdad Oil-Gas project, has been proposed to get the gas to Quds. Because the costs of buying and trucking diesel fuel from Turkey are so high, the projected $33 million cost of the project would be recovered within three months of completion, the generation specialist says. Still, the project was recently shelved as Iraqi and U.S. officials balked at its cost at a time when funds were being shifted to security. "It's insane," the PCO generation specialist in Iraq says of the decision."

-----

"Iraqis refuse to do preventive maintenance. Refuse to log power fluctuations. Refuse to maintain subsidiary equipment designed to buffer surges/dips due to problems elsewhere in the grid."

Fire them. Use Americans service people. Strip every engineer from every ship and air wing and send them to Iraq to fix the electricity. Are we or are we not at war?

"You want power? Deal with the insurgents."

Your want to deal with the insurgents? Give Iraqis power. It is entirely within our resources to do so.

The only thing stopping us is political will. The president could call GE tomorrow and ask them to start turning out high voltage wire by the acre. You can buy multi-megawatt generators and refineries off the shelf. You can stick a damn pipe onto a natural gas flare and stick the other end into a prefabricated generator. This isnt rocket science- but the will isnt there to give the finger to 4 years of our misguided attempts to let the Iraqis bungle it themselves. Our our beurocracy as well. Give me 6 months, the WH Chief of Staff on speeddial, a blank check, and my ass kicking boots and i'll make Baghdad look like Las Vegas.

Well, you have your call on how things were done, and I have my conversations with the guys in uniform who were there and involved for several years with the electricity generation / distribution system.

But that aside, this sort of assertion is just .... naive.

Power plants and refineries can be built directly over oil fields if needs be. A crew of American engineers can walk in and take over a building.

Setting aside the fact that building refineries is not exactly the work of a couple months of sweat by troops, once an Iraqi government was elected then no, a crew of American engineers could NOT "walk in and take over a building" at power plants.

This speaks for itself.

http://patriotfiles.org/civilizationcalls.htm

"Well, you have your call on how things were done, and I have my conversations with the guys in uniform who were there and involved for several years with the electricity generation / distribution system. "

I believe i just pointed to a comprehensive article (which you havent had time to read yet) that interviews dozens of American and Iraqis working inside the power plants every day by an author who went there and met them face to face.

"But that aside, this sort of assertion is just .... naive."

Care to tell me how so? Such arguments of authority i find generally mask an unwillingness to

"Setting aside the fact that building refineries is not exactly the work of a couple months of sweat by troops,"

Are you suggesting its physically impossible? And why not use pre-frabicated units? Try googling them, you got a few million dollars you can buy just about anything.

" once an Iraqi government was elected then no, a crew of American engineers could NOT "walk in and take over a building" at power plants."

Is it physically impossible?

I won't disagree with Mark about the importance of electricity, but I don't think its near the most important thing.

Anbar province has been averaging over 15 hours of electricity a day and on a random day averaged over 23 hours. October 2006 SIGIR Report Electricity hasn't solved the problems in Anbar, nor in two other provinces with security problems (Diyala and Salah ad din) With one exception (Bahgdad), Iraqis receive more electricity in an average day than before the invasion.

The same report shows Baghdad receives an average of about 4.7 hours of electricity a day, but on the same random date it received a total of 15 minutes. This compares with a pre-invasion average of 16-24 hours.

According to SIGIR, electricity problems in Baghdad are a result of the security situation:

The electricity sector was especially
hard hit. Recent attacks on power lines providing electricity to Baghdad isolated the capital from the national power grid, and power-line repair continues to be difficult. Iraq’s Minister of Electricity recently stated:

Every day I send repair teams, but they can’t get to the area: there are too many insurgents…I’ve spoken to [everyone] ...no one can help.

The Iraq Study Group said electricity in Baghdad is bad because (a) Shiites are believed to be denying services to Sunni neighborhoods and (b) insurgents explode transmission towers and use snipers to kill repairmen. (Note that I'm not certain if (a) is true, but it is at least perceived to be true and that may be all that matters)

I think America needs to ratchet down security efforts in and around Baghdad, which should both improve electricity distribution and cool heads to allow Sunnis and Shiites to reach a political consensus.

Here's a list of about 50 multi-megawatt generators for sale of up to 1000MW:

How about the floating barges they list?

source

Refineries anyone?

more?

more?

This isnt like moving the pyramids. Refineries and generators are building full of equipment. The equipment is broken down and put on barges- sometimes the buildings are made to be able to do so as well. It happens all the time, there are hundreds of these units on the market at any given time. They could easily be floated to Iraq and dumped somewhere with a fuel source, and it then becomes a much simpler task to protect the outgoing power infastructure only (which can be buried deep underground, but dont get me started on that). The point is if one idiot with a google connection like me can figure this out, you'd think an egghead in the white house could. But NOBODY HAS THAT JOB. Lots of little bueaurocrats share the job, which is less the worthless. Put Guiliani in charge of Iraq's electricity and then get out of his way.

It wasn't until 1863, for example, that the Union Army finally came to understand that the army of the CSA would not be defeated until it had been vanquished in the field one time after another, over and over again. U.S. Grant was the first Union general to understand this fact, for which President Lincoln rewarded him with command of all the Union armies in the field. "I can't fire this man," Lincoln told critics, "he fights."

Grant was not just a man who fought, he was a man who never fought a battle without learning something from it. It was that quality above all that made him the best all-around general of the 19th century.

By 1863, after much brain-storming with Sherman, he had learned that it would take many years to defeat rebellion by shattering Confederate armies - and Grant had shattered quite a few by then - and then chasing their guerrilla remnants around a still-hostile Southern population. He understood that the population would have to be defeated, too, not by attacking civilians but by making them feel the full weight and deprivation of their war effort. As Sherman put it, "They must be made to understand that war and personal ruin are synonymous terms."

To do that, Grant pinned down the awesome striking arm of the CSA, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, while Sherman rampaged from Atlanta to Charleston, cutting off Southern cities from their armies, and cutting both armies and cities off from sources of supply. The more the civilian felt the effects of war, the more the soldier felt it, and vice versa - a vicious cycle of defeat. The Confederacy was defeated not by the defeat of its armies, but by the defeat of civilian morale, which had utterly collapsed by the end of 1864.

Grant's strategy was heavily criticized, right up until the day it won the war. It is still not well understood today. It was not a strategy of attrition, though of course all attrition favored the Union. Southern revisionists love to argue that they were overwhelmed by sheer numbers, but that's not how it happened. They were defeated because Grant nullified all of their advantages and left them to strangle on their disadvantages, making it increasingly clear that nothing could save them - the South could not come to Lee's rescue with supplies and reinforcements, and Lee could not protect the South from Sherman. They could not hope for rescue from Europe or the Northern anti-war Democrats, either, because Grant's close relationship with Lincoln gave his strategy a full political and diplomatic aspect.

There was another enemy that Grant had to overcome, and that was defeatism at home. The public never gave up the expectation that everything ought to be ended by a grand Waterloo-style battle. The Democrats produced their famous "war failure" platform, calling for unconditional armistice, at a time when Lee was already beaten. From the time that Grant headed south from the Wilderness, Lee was never allowed to take the initiative and dictate events again. When he finally broke away from Grant, he could do nothing except flee a short distance and surrender.

We're a long way from Appomattox in Iraq. We're still at Vicksburg, and the insurgents are still confident that we'll have to give it all up and go home sooner or later. Grant and Lincoln were men who simply wouldn't give up, but I don't know if we have enough leaders who are made of their stuff.

MikeW -- Thanks for the further clarification. Actually, I would suspect that in most cases assignment approval is largely pro-forma, and that's why we don't hear much about it, but the particular political circumstances of the moment have understandably made this particular assignment approval a bit more newsworthy.

"The portable Power Barge quickly provides an economical and reliable power source to remote areas. As power needs or political climates of a region change, the Power Barge can be relocated easily.

The barge pictured above uses the power of Caterpillar's 3600 family of engines and generator sets. The 3600 family is manufactured in two distinct configurations: distillate and heavy fuel. Each engine can be converted to use another fuel as supply, quality and price change.

If you prefer tubines, we have an excellent inventory of turbines ranging in size from 1.2 to over 300 MW at 50 or 60 HZ and many are dual fuel. (Diesel and natural gas).

We normally also have used and reconditioned units with warranty at attractive prices.

Call Estill Lundsford at 850-453-3471 (USA), fill out the form on the Powerplants Page for multiple units, or fill out the form below for these.

Here.

For those keeping track, one of these barges could provide nearly 10% of Iraqs 4000MW electricity shortfall. It could be floated on the coast of the Persian Gulf where the off-shore refineries are and proteted by the Navy. If necessary the US Navy could provide the fuel itself, entirely independently of Iraq. Attaching it to the Basra grid would allow some of the capacity that had been going to Baghdad before the war to return there, where the fighting is.

Again, why hasnt anybody thought of anything like this? Because it isnt anyone's job. Because the White House hasnt given anyone that job.

Now i know full well that distribution is an entirely different question subject to insurgency and terrorism. Fine, we can look at that as well. But until there is surplus capacity to provide electricity instead of a massive (50%!) deficit of demand, even when the distro isnt blown up we're chasing our tails. Start at the source and then go step by step until you end up right at the Iraqis' television sets.

Mark, I believe people in Baghdad already have access to generators, usually operated by a neighborhood entrepreneur. The complaint is the cost, access to refined fuels and they average about eight hours a day. Mohammed discussed some of this at Iraq the Model

The public never gave up the expectation that everything ought to be ended by a grand Waterloo-style battle. The Democrats produced their famous "war failure" platform, calling for unconditional armistice, at a time when Lee was already beaten.

1. Some successful plans looked like failures at their beginning.
2. The Bush Iraq War plan looks like a failure.
3. Therefore, the Bush Iraq War plan will become a success.

Nibras Kazmi? You mean the guy associated with Chalabi?

Not just associated with the INC and Chalabi, but it's Director of Research.

In other words, it's extremely possible that he's the same man who brought us Curveball.

I don't want to dismiss his views out of hand, but to mention him and not mention his past ventures in drastic misinformation is either disengenuous or based on ignorance of his past.

"Mark, I believe people in Baghdad already have access to generators, usually operated by a neighborhood entrepreneur. The complaint is the cost, access to refined fuels and they average about eight hours a day."

I understand that, and its a bad solution. First, its still not accounting for nearly enough electricity per day in the summer in Iraq. Secondly, its expensive and the poor cant afford it. There are many poor Iraqis who already have enough enticement to collect a few dinar for taking a pot shot at an American. Thirdly, it creates even further stress on fuel supplies. So its either sitting in the dark 18 hours a day or standing in line for gas for 2 hours to get 8 hours of electricity.

There is a reason the rest of the world, including many nasty warring places, have distributed AC power and not local DC generators.

Im not saying giving every Iraqi 24 hours of electricity is a cure-all, but I truly believe its easily the most cost-effective (and blood effective) means we have of reducing violence and increaseing Iraqi good will. Not just towards us, but towards the Iraqi government and each other. Every summer there are reports in the US of how murder rates go up during heat waves. Yet we have left 25 million people who didnt like us in the first place baking in the desert for 4 years. Think about how crazy that is. This is a solution the US well equipped to do, and at worst it does no harm. Can anyone else think of an idea that can say the same at this stage of the game?

In 1862, Democrats approached General McClellan while he was in command of the Army of the Potomac, seeking his consent to be their Presidential candidate and encouraging him to continue to fight the war "in that inefficient conciliatory style." The story is that he eventually agreed to these things in writing (including the quoted part), but was encouraged by a confidant to destroy the letter since it smacked of treason. Lincoln apparently believed the story, but thought that it did not reflect on McClellan's disloyalty to the country, but his disloyalty to the administration.

Unless Barbara Boxer is willing to extrapolate on the multiple occasions that Congress has intervened in American military tactics to bring an end to conflicts, this is the only instance that I am aware of. It wasn't successful, nor was it an act of Congress. Nor, if it had been publicized, would it have met with anything less than howls of outrage from the War Democrats.

Great post Mr Sensing. Made my day.

> Instead they are IMPORTING truck loads of Turkish diesel... when there is a natural gas terminal literally across the street.

You do know that natural gas and diesel are rarely interchangeable, right?

As to Iraqi electricity, I'm reminded of the guy who killed his parents and then wanted sympathy because he was an orphan. You can't stop someone from pissing in his soup or from letting his neighbor do so, and it isn't your fault when such a person has piss in their soup.

The upcoming troop surge will help keep the dog and cat population down.

I wonder if this means that the JAG types will be banned from dictating ruyles of engagement. Its amazing our troops can function at all since the ROE seem to limit their actions and options to bad language. Every JAG type should be forced to spend 50% of his time patrolling before being allowed any where near ROE procedures.

As for civilians and MSM types who believe that you can negotiate with the jihaddies I think we should allow them all to volunteer to start discussions in Baghdad by dropping them off in Sadr City.

You do know that natural gas and diesel are rarely interchangeable, right?

Except, they are in the electricity generators in question. Indeed, natural gas is strongly preferred. As you would have known if you had read the linked article, as I did.

What would motivate someone to show he was too lazy to read the link, Andy? Inquiring minds want to know.

I wonder if this means that the JAG types will be banned from dictating ruyles of engagement.

That must explain the Russian failures in Chechnya and Afghanistan, too soft.

"As to Iraqi electricity, I'm reminded of the guy who killed his parents and then wanted sympathy because he was an orphan."

That's absolutely fine. In which case we should be out of Iraq before the ink on the orders can dry.

There is a really untenable attitude in a number of people that somehow we can both put the responsibility for what happens in Iraq entirely on the Iraqis, and yet we have to stay and win. I put it out there that those ideas are mutually exclusive. This isnt about 'fairness', its about victory.

Maybe Iraqi recalcitrance is indeed the biggest hurdle we have. IT DOESNT MATTER. We have to do what we have to do to win, or we should leave instantly. If that means grabbing back authority from the Iraqis in certain specific instances, so be it. We cant have it both ways.

Quite right, Mark, but you left out the corollary. If the Iraqis are too incompetent to run generators, they aren't likely to make very good policemen and soldiers as our bulwark against Iran and Al Qaeda, are they?

In fact, the "killing" option was incredibly succesful at Fallujah. My son was stationed in Fallujah the next year and it was the most peaceful city in the country.

Yes, and the rest of Al-Anbar? Donald, I may well be an idiot (get called it enough I'm starting to like it), but you're an obfuscating fool.

Killing alone didn't pacify Fallujah. I wouldn't even call it the sine quo non. Deporting the entire town and then slowly filtering them back into their homes and makeshift camps did.

Err, few points on power generation.

First off, a generator is no more a power station than an engine is a car.

Second, those barge based solutions are spectacularly inefficient, maintenance nightmares. They were designed for short term augmentation/emergency usage, over enthusiastic manufacturer marketing aside. Which is why you don't see them in widespread use, the ability to put a generator on a boat has been around forever after all.

Third, even if we did do that (or parked a nuke boat and tapped the reactor), you still have to move the electricity to the people who need it. All said, it's easier to ship the fuel to the power station (located at the city) than it is to build the power station on the fuel supply source and ship the electricity. Not only do you have the same vulnerable distribution lines, but all the expensive and delicate equipment required to transmit electricity long distances. And it's inefficient as hell to boot. Not all cities in Iraq are built on oil fields.

Fourth, of course they are buying off the shelf 'modular' components. What did you think they were doing, mining the iron ore and starting from scratch? Modular tends to be a marketing term of art with very fuzzy real world implementations. These things aren't legos you know. Real world example, we bought two tanks with 3" pipe input/outputs to expand onto an existing refinery operation. When the tanks showed up (on rail cars) from the same manufacturer no less, the inputs on one tank proved to be a foot and a half above the outputs on the other. When we asked the manufacturer how we were supposed to get the stuff to go uphill, they suggested a pump. We ended up digging a hole for the tank. It was a big hole.

Portable refineries? Maybe with tiny output capacities. I suppose. Those links of yours went to either people selling fuel, selling refinery equipment (again, components do not, the total, make), or people selling existing refineries. The kind bolted to the ground already. What's the point in having a small refinery and having to ship in crude, when it's cheaper/easier to just refine the stuff in a much larger refinery somewhere else and just ship in the finished product?

A midsize refinery (on the smaller side of the mid-size range) takes in about 50,000 barrels a day of crude. That's 2,100,000 gallons of product a day (42 gallons a barrel for petro products, don't ask why it's different than for everything else). Or about 8,000 cubic meters (give or take depending on temperature). About 50-60% becomes gasoline, and the rest a mix of diesel, heating oils, and various distillates (and waste), assuming approximately the same efficiencies as US plants. You read correctly, 8 cu km worth a day. Larger refineries will do better than 4 times that level of input/output. If you think something like that can be slapped together in a couple of months with just a few calls to some vendors, you are out of your mind.

Put it this way, the whole power generation/distribution system in the US has issues, and that's with oodles of money, lot's of time, and no one blowing things up.

Your post was a picture perfect example of the "I don't understand the nature or scale of the problem, and have no grasp of the issues involved, but since I can use google and find relevant looking webpages, it must be easy to do." I smell a manager.

I don't mean this as a personal attack, merely pointing out that your argument is sloppy, hasty, and constructed in ignorance. Please reconsider, and give the people involved some credit.

It's almost certain we could be doing a better job. There's always SOME room for improvement in essentially every large project. Whether we could be doing a MUCH better job is impossible to tell from this distance.

It's hardly an insolvable problem, they'll need to be built. Distribution systems constructed. Work-force trained. Management created and trained. Accounting systems built. Maintenance procedures created. Etc, etc. Long, tedious, tricky, likely with lot's of setbacks and a few outright failures mixed in with the successes.

I would guess we probably passed the stage of having finished putting out all the short-term fires about 6 months to a year ago, and just started being able to really step back and start tackling the long term issues.

The perfect is the enemy of the good. I've never really understood the, "If it can't be done at once, without flaws, you shouldn't do it at all" philosophy.

True story along these lines. Bear with me on the setup, because it underscores the punchine.

In the mid-1980s I was a contractor-side program manager responsible for aiding the transition of a group of large USAF avionics test equipment programs over to use a new set of software development tools my company had built.

This toolset, sponsored by the Avionics Lab at Wright Patterson AFB, was carefully organized into components that could be mixed and matched. It comprised compilers, macro-assemblers, link editors and a sophisticated source-code-level debugger with a plug in chip simulator (or alternately, it could be connected to an in-circuit emulator). It was pretty sophisticated -- about 90+% of the code to fly an aircraft, identify friendly/hostile craft etc. could be debugged before moving to the lab and actual hardware.

This toolkit was hosted on any of 3 different operating systems/computer lines and produced code for both the USAF-standard avionics chip instruction set of the time and also the host machine.

Overall, well more than a million lines of high-level source code involved, and that's not counting the massive validation test suite that took DAYS to run for every new release. In addition to the official standard version of the tools, we also produced tailored versions for a variety of DOD projects that produced, for example, executable code highly optimized for the hardware used by Boeing Military Aircraft and similiar shops. By design, those tailored versions used the standard components wherever possible.

The toolset configuration management scheme, approved by USAF and developed with their ongoing oversight, was organized around the modularity of those components so that as new hardware was proposed for space or airplane systems, most of the rest of the toolset could be re-used.

So that's the background for this encounter:

I was given the task of helping USAF move the test equipment software for several major combat aircraft from the hodgepodge of their previous language toolsets to use the new standard one. One aircraft test equipment program (the plane will go unidentified here) was a high priority and I was directed to go work with them first. My point of contact there was a flyboy newly assigned to this desk, an O3 (Captain) in an O4 (Major slot). His boss, an O5 (LtCol) was also new in the job.

In my first meeting with the flyboy, he let me know in no uncertain terms that the configuration management scheme of our toolset had to be changed to match the scheme they used for spare parts etc. I tried in vain to explain that the whole point of moving his program onto our tools was to align them with the standard toolset and that meant working with the toolset's configuration control system.

Mr. "I Fly Planes" stood up, looked down at me and said (and I quote with accuracy):

Don't try to bullshit me. I own an Apple II and took a Fortran class at the academy. I know all about programming.

What more was there to say in response to that?

I stood up, went to the restroom, banged my head against the wall a couple times and headed back to my office. By the time I got there the O5 was ringing my phone demanding I get over to his office ASAP. Off I went and when I got there, tried to explain the issue to him. He did the whole "ream out the contractor" bit - complete with banging on his desk and accusing me and my company of trying to cheat the government. I finally referred him over to the Avionics Lab folks who were my contractual client.

It's a funny thing, but for the next few weeks every time either of them called me my phone just cut out early on in the conversation. Must have been a hardware problem or something LOL.

This whole matter went up the chain to, if I remember correctly, the 2 star level and back down to the aircraft test equipment program, who reluctantly got religion and used our config mgmt scheme. At which point we found all sorts of kludges in their code that had been put there to get around problems with their old compiler ....

Sigh.

(Oh, and lest the above come off as ant-USAF, as regulars here may remember, my husband is a retired USAF officer.)

Don't try to bullshit me. I own an Apple II and took a Fortran class at the academy. I know all about programming.

SIGH.

"First off, a generator is no more a power station than an engine is a car."

Ok. And?

"Second, those barge based solutions are spectacularly inefficient, maintenance nightmares."

As has been said to everyone else- read the IEEE Spectrum article and then come talk about efficiency and maintence nightmares. What the Iraqis are doing RIGHT NOW goes FAR beyong the kind of everyday inefficiency you are talking about. This is an emergency situation we are talking about- not the local com-ed station trying to maximize productivity.

"Third, even if we did do that (or parked a nuke boat and tapped the reactor), you still have to move the electricity to the people who need it."

As I said that is a seperate argument. If you dealing with corruption and violence trying to get fuel to the plant AND get electricity out of the plant, why not end ONE of those problems so you can devote your resources to the other?

" All said, it's easier to ship the fuel to the power station (located at the city) than it is to build the power station on the fuel supply source and ship the electricity."

EASIER? Of course its EASIER? Its easier to build the plant in Detroit. This isnt about what the optimal solution is for gods sake. This is about what will work in Iraq in the time allotted.

"And it's inefficient as hell to boot. Not all cities in Iraq are built on oil fields."

Yeh, too bad really. Its almost like there is some reason Iraqis have so little electricity. All you have done is repeat what the problems are that have helped lead to the current failures. Good to note, but well behind the curve. My point has been that none of these things can be allowed to stop us from lighting up Iraq. Effeciency means nothing to me. In the long term it matters, not the short. We have (as far as Iraqi standards go) limitless resources. If we had to burn dollar bills in furnaces to produce electricity i would be for it. Its still cheaper than blood.

"Larger refineries will do better than 4 times that level of input/output. If you think something like that can be slapped together in a couple of months with just a few calls to some vendors, you are out of your mind."

Well, lets see, the sources i found just wondering google included any number of 100,000 BPD refineries that the seller offered to dismantle, refurbish, and transport. THE POINT IS they CAN be dismantled and moved. Hence one would think the United States government could do so even faster and adapt as needed to make them work. THE POINT IS these things are bought, taken apart, moved, put back together, IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR every day. As a critical government program in wartime, one would think we could make that kind of thing happen somehow.

Did i make it sound to easy? You're right in reality it wont be easy and will require moving heaven and earth from a nuts and bolts perspective. BUT WE HAVE THE RESOURCES TO DO THAT. The point is, if it is possible it is 'easy' from the standpoint of being the greatest industrial power in existance.

"Put it this way, the whole power generation/distribution system in the US has issues, and that's with oodles of money, lot's of time, and no one blowing things up."

Lets put it this way- if the US power grid was demolished to the level of post-war Iraq somehow, are you seriously trying to tell me that in FOUR YEARS we wouldnt be able to fix it better than Iraq has been fixed? That is absurd. I wager post-Katrini the electrical infastructure was fixed in weeks for the most part. But of course the US would never stand for the level of ineptidude displayed in Iraq- a level you would know about had you read the source article.

Look, this argument is beyond absurd at this point. We arent talking about building a space station on mars. This technology is 100 years old and more. Everything needing to be done can be done with US industrial might. This isnt some company at work here, we're the friggin United States.

"Your post was a picture perfect example of the "I don't understand the nature or scale of the problem, and have no grasp of the issues involved, but since I can use google and find relevant looking webpages, it must be easy to do." I smell a manager."

Your post is an example of "I havent read the sources provided and I'm wading into something way over my hear" thank you very much.

"It's almost certain we could be doing a better job. There's always SOME room for improvement in essentially every large project."

YOUVE GOT TO BE FREAKING KIDDING ME. 4 YEARS IN IRAQ AND 20 BILLION OF DOLLARS AND WE HAVENT GIVEN THEM A SINGLE MEGAWATT MORE CAPACITY AND THATS SOME ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT? Christ, are you a defense contractor? Do you demand ANY kind of results?

"Whether we could be doing a MUCH better job is impossible to tell from this distance."

Oh, so why bother.

"The perfect is the enemy of the good. I've never really understood the, "If it can't be done at once, without flaws, you shouldn't do it at all" philosophy."

Holy christ, after all that your conclusion is the perfect is the enemy of the good? Arent you the one complaining about ineffiency? I dont think i've ever been so angry about a hastilly and badly thrown together response, unsourced, which clearly failed to read the source material. Not only are you wasting my time and everyone elses, but your forcing me to waste thread space to address it.

Mark Buehner:

Before turning the US into an electrical utility company (or is it a charity? I don't hear you talking about Iraqis paying for either the infrastructure or the power produced) for the benefit of the Iraqi population, could you give a little more detail on the evidence behind you premise that improved electrical service would be the silver bullet that turns Iraq into a modern, pluralistic, liberal democratic society?

I have no doubt that Iraqis would like more power generation capability and improved electrical service, but the leap from that to a victory endstate seems to be stealing a couple of bases.

There are no silver bullets.

Well, here it is two days later, and I am still thinking there should be a response from Col. Sensing, regarding Kazimi's history of misinformation. How can you claim with such assertiveness either that the insurgency has run out, or that most of the violence is Al-Queda inspired, given such shortage, and such cherry-picking of the evidence?

Col. Sensing, are you interested in the reality of the situation, or only interested in pushing evidence that matches your pre-conceived conclusions?

In this particular post, the weakness of your argument is particularly clear, and your silence on evidentiary matters speaks volumes.

Well, let's see about those 'sources' of yours. The first was to a random reseller of odd and end generator equipment and the occasional used barges. You don't seem to grasp the point that you don't just plop down a generator, pour fuel in one end and get electricity out the other exactly. There's a bit more to the process than that.

The next is to a company called Ko-Fab that is selling (up to) 4 refineries of unspecified capacity. They ALSO sell fuel up to a hundred million barrels A YEAR, with shipping options. The refineries capacity is unspecified. I tried to explain why, by definition, they can't be more than tiny. You've obviously never actually seen an oil refinery before. They cover acres you know.

Next up is Ventech, a decent supplier of misc. refining gear and equipment.

Last up was Merger Networks, a sales site for various oil and gas related properties. Not sure what good a little 7500 BPD refinery in Lousiana or 4 oil rigs in Texas will do Iraq.

THE POINT IS these things are bought, taken apart, moved, put back together, IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR every day.

Sure.... find me an example of anyone ever having moved a 100,000+ BPD refinery. Ever. And I don't mean building a new facility and just taking some of the choice equipment from an older site. You're embarassing yourself and don't know it.

Are you seriously proposing that everyone involved in the reconstruction effort is incompetent because we didn't rebuild the infrastructure with used equipment purchased off 'teh intarweb'?

Or were you trying to argue that it's a bad thing that they were too hasty, bought the wrong kind of turbines for the power plant in Qom, and are now flailing around trying to decide how to extract themselves?

Given that you just said you don't care about inefficiency or money, isn't that a good thing? Throw a whole pile of equipment at the problem and see what sticks? I've no idea what your trying to argue here. The only point I could extract was that they are all obviously incompetent because they didn't just buy stuff off the shelf and...do something unspecified with it. Plant it and see if it grows maybe?

Did YOU actually read that spectrum article? Minor technical problems aside (one engineer bitching about the choice of turbines - by the way the ones they bought are picky as hell about input feeds, but run like dreams on the right stuff, not as clear cut a mistake as you might like to think), they didn't state they were having problems actually building the stuff. The article was chock full of brand new, state of the art installations. The article was actually stating that since the Iraqi government refused to raise prices to reflect actual costs involved, demand was exploding faster than new supply was coming online, causing rotating power outages, which are just blamed on the Americans for not installing new equipment fast enough.

YOUVE GOT TO BE FREAKING KIDDING ME. 4 YEARS IN IRAQ AND 20 BILLION OF DOLLARS AND WE HAVENT GIVEN THEM A SINGLE MEGAWATT MORE CAPACITY AND THATS SOME ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT?

Wow. Here's a flat out lie. From your own article:

According to last summer's GAO report, some $5.7 billion had been spent on work in the electrical sector in the two years prior to spring 2005. That total included $4.9 billion in U.S.-appropriated funds and $816 million in Iraqi money. What that investment bought was, among other things, the addition or restoration of several thousand megawatts of generating capacity (although at any given time less than half of it is actually available on the grid), several hundred kilometers of new or refurbished transmission lines, one new and one rebuilt transmission substation, and 44 new or improved distribution substations.

Several thousand new megawatts of generation. And that was as of a year and a half ago.

Let's take a good look at those 5 major points the article listed about why things aren't rosy in Iraq:

* A poor match between generating technologies and the kinds of fuels available in Iraq.

Oversimplification. This was caused, from the same article, partly as a result of people jumping in a bit too fast, without checking things out. But the larger, unstated, subtext here is the usual philosophical holy war between the US/Japanese standard of buying the best gear possible, even though it's finicky as hell, and the rest of the world, which likes to use less capable but more rugged equipment.

* A well-armed insurgency that has made destroying electrical infrastructure a centerpiece of its bid to destroy the country's fledgling democracy.

See the original point of this post.

* Revenue levels coming into the Ministry of Electricity that are so low as to be insignificant, a function of a ruinously low rate structure and far too few electric meters actually recording how much power people are using.

Decide whether or not we're supposed to be running the country via dictatorial fiat or not. Then we can talk about whether this is our problem. The Iraqi's are gonna have to learn these things some time.

* Management and personnel problems at all levels of the government, including the ministry, which is generally believed to have thousands of fictitious employees created for the sole purpose of getting a paycheck cashed by someone else.

Corruption. The bane of the third world. If you have a solution for it, I'm sure everyone is all ears? Again, the Iraqi's will either deal with it or not.

* The erosion of operational and, particularly, maintenance skills among workers at the country's Ministry of Electricity.

Not to mention extreme growth inevitably results in people being hired, handed tools, and thrown to work on stuff they barely understand. Like non-coms, good maintenance leads need years, decades really, to get fully up to speed. ONLY time, will solve this problem, although beefing up training will help, but, remember, time spent training is time not spent working on stuff.

Again, they are building capacity at a good clip, but demand is running away from them. Eventually that growth in demand will taper off and the supply side will catch up.

Like I said, not fast, not pretty, but it is happening. How you equate the steady progress being made and the fact that there is still more to do with gross incompetence is beyond me.

I dont think i've ever been so angry about a hastilly and badly thrown together response, unsourced, which clearly failed to read the source material. Not only are you wasting my time and everyone elses, but your forcing me to waste thread space to address it.

Hey, if you get upset when people call you on lying, misrepresenting, and inventing new and interesting capabilities for the world, well, don't?

I happen to know a little bit about oil/gas operations you see. Chips down, I'm a senior systems engineer with one of the majors (big oil refining/distribution corps).

your silence on evidentiary matters speaks volumes.

The Rev. Sensing is no doubt busy this weekend with preparing for his sermon and worship services tomorrow.

HR: Why don't you go read the above links at Blackfive? Or how about the polling at World Opinion Poll that showed 26% of Sunnis had switched last year from calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops. Or how about the Iraqi Study Group Report that Sunni tribal Leaders in Anbar province had agreed and were in fact were pursuing al-Qaeda and foreign fighters.

Treefrog: Total electricity generation in Iraq is down from before the war, so whatever new production you're referring to is more than compensated for by reductions elsewhere. And without getting into technical details, if the War on Terror is so important, is there really, truly no way we could have brought electricity to Iraq? (We didn't do well on many other infrastructure fronts, either.) To be honest, that just seems incredible.

PD Shaw: The linked-to story at Blackfive is from the Director of Research for the Iraq National Congress, i.e., Ahmad Chalabi. They are known liars, unless you just found the WMD their fake defectors described to us in minute, GPS-coordinate detail. You can't be serious about believing one word of what these people say.

That's not the linkS at Blackfive I was referring to. [space] [space] [space]

Go to this Blackfive page and you will see several links to similar stories from multiple sources.

Without data on how much be blew up during the war, plus data on how bad the remaining equipment was, it's hard to draw any meaningful comparisons pre/post war. I'd suspect we're probably almost completely redoing their power grid from the ground up, replacing one section at a time.

I'd be hesitant to draw to many conclusions from raw generator capacity, it's a lousy stat to look at. I suspect the real shortcoming in Iraq is not generator capacity, that's actually the easiest thing to build (when you don't have to deal with EPA red tape anyway). Distribution's probably the killer. It's not like we can pull up a generator and let people fill up at it. Ironically, those generators their putting in are better than most US power plants use by a fair margin (which isn't saying much given the aging state of the US systems, another topic entire).

And yes, I figure we're about a year, year and a half, behind where we should be, a lot of time was wasted figuring out what was needed, when it should've been planned before the war. The administration screwed up pure and simple, and the whole reconstruction effort is definitely behind.

The using local Iraqi labor/subcontractors is both a plus and a minus here, the plus side is obvious, but it does mean everything is going to take longer than it would have if we just hauled in more people to do it. The larger the pool of skilled labor though, the better long term.

Actually, I'd rate infrastructure in this order: Roads (without which you can't really do anything), Water (duh), Food (duh again), Communication, Sewers, Medical needs, and then electricity. As long as the core facilities (hospitals, radio stations, food and water distribution nets, etc) are getting power, residential power is rather optional. Nice, but optional. Nobodies going to be dropping dead tomorrow if the power goes out (people in the mid-east have been dealing with the heat for centuries). Or at least I'm going to need some a rather good argument down that line.

I'll repeat what I said before, we could almost certainly be doing a better job. In 10 years we'll all know in what ways precisely.

It certainly isn't a disaster though, I don't have any mid-east experience myself, but from people I've talked to, if a western company wasn't maintaining it, it was crap. Likely, we are essentially totally rebuilding their power grid from near scratch, in which case raw statistics won't show the progress being made.

If the hours of electricity don't start creeping up to around the 16 mark from the 8-10 mark in another two years though, I'll start worrying.

I'd say 3 things need to change. First, the security situation has got to be fixed. Power grids are just way to sensitive to sabotage to ever be reliable. Heck, you could probably start knocking US cities off the grid on a regular basis with 30 people and a little plastic explosive, and they'd have a hell of a time trying to stop you.

Second, they need some rational economics here. They really need to price the stuff correctly and put some actual cost on the people who are over-using. Not easy to keep a grid up when demand keeps spiking on you, brown-outs all over.

Third, I think the Iraqis really need to take ownership. It's not our infrastructure, it's theirs. They need to learn to care for it, manage it, and in general take pride in it. The insurgents should be taking the PR hit for blowing up the neighborhood substation, not the US for failing to pull power out our butts. The Iraqis, heck the whole middle east, really needs to get out of the manna from heaven mode of thought and into the 'Gee, we don't have enough power, let's build stuff to get more' mode.

Actually, a power grid is a good starter project, so to speak, for a nation. Second only to roads I think. Requires basic engineering expertise, but nothing too fancy. Relatively easy to pre-plan (assuming nobody's blowing stuff up on you), not too expensive, but not too cheap either. And at the end of the day, you have something tangible for everyone in the country.

Remember, we're trying to build a nation out of Iraq, not a land of juiced up sheep.

Two other points:

The oil refining side seems in excellent shape. Crude production is up to pre-war levels, and still climbing. They'll likely need a bunch of new refining capacity to deal with rising demand, but that seems to be happening. They seem to be pulling in a steady 3 billion or so a month in revenue from that, I wonder why that isn't being redirected into other infrastructure projects, or is it?

Second, the fact that power demand (electrical and gas) is all spiking is a very good thing if you think about it. Sign of a very healthy economy. I'll take growing pains over any other kind of problem any day of the week.

PD Shaw,

I've read the links at the Blackfive. A few observations -

a. No other story backs up the same POINT as the Kazimi story, although the other stories talk about some U.S. forces wins. Mainly, Operation Turki. And then a nice story about recruiting at Fallujah. Neither of which back up Kazimi's story. And then a couple of U.S. statements.

b. Now, there have been some stories about Sunni's shifting in their attitude towards the U.S. - but this has been mainly because they think the Shiite militia death squads are going to exterminate ALL Sunni, in claimed Shiite areas, and hope that the U.S. forces will be a counterweight to that.

I'm willing to be persuaded. My own thoughts on the matter are, Iraq is the middle of a "soft partition", and thus, slowly, Shiite, Kurd, and Sunni Iraq are eventually emerging as three in fact separate countries, if not in name. (and of course, that is already true in Kurdish territory.)

In that sense, focusing on Baghdad makes sense, as the other regions will be dominated by the indigenous population, and thus less civil strife.

The numbers are not big enough, though, for Baghdad. What's funny is, Petraeus own recommendation in his writing, recommends MORE troops, like 100 K more, pacifying an area the size of Baghdad. Perhaps Petraeus thinks he has recognized "choke points" and believes he can enforce peace in those chokepoints. And the other neighborhoods have enough Shiite/Sunni separation, that he doesn't have to worry about those areas of Baghdad - who knows.

At any rate, my point re: this Sensing article, still stands. It would behoove Don Sensing to acknowledge that his main lynchpin link, is from a deeply dishonest source.

It almost seems that what we have here is a classic (sort of) chicken and egg argument. The chicken is electricity and the egg is security. Everyone seems to agree that both are necessary. The argument seems to be over what comes first.

HR: Thanks for doing the extra-credit reading. I have really little to say about a. and b. There has been a slow drip of stories during the last few months, suggesting that the Sunni insurgency was becoming divided and defeated. I suspect that there might be some confusion because the insurgencies I think we're talking about here are the Baathist and Tikrit tribes. (See the link at my comment #6 -- that still leaves the problem of terrorists and secular killing) The strategy of this group was to take advantage of its early supremacy in weapons and organization to create an opportunity in which a Sunni-led Iraq might be reformed. They tried to extend that advantage with outside alliances, but all in all events have not shaped to their liking.

I do not believe a partition, soft or hard, is likely between Arabs. Before the invasion, there were about 3 million Sunni Arabs and 14 million Shiite Arabs. I suspect the numbers have moved to favor Shiites even more. The Sunni Arabs are more geographically dispersed than the Kurds. They are nationalist in disposition, so unlikely to want a rump state.

I don't think the troop size in Baghdad is as important as the strategy. The strategy appears to be one of "clear, hold and build," and if so, the more troops, the quicker one could work through the neighborhoods. (The strategy also appears to multiply U.S. forces by pairing them with Iraqi units) Given the American public's impatience with Iraq, I assume that the additional troops are intended to show Congress in the Fall that the plan is working. The alternatives will not be good, I fear.