Power Delayed: Iraq’s Electricity Crisis

For all the fireworks and finesse of the Persian Gulf War, Iraqis widely concur that the sanctions regime that followed was far more impactful than the initial conflict. The same is true for the electrical grid. While Iraq’s electrical grid had been destroyed in the past, what made this era different was the complete separation between infrastructure and the credit systems that installed them. Now, sanctions totally and completely disconnected Iraq from the world. Under the new regime, “any new external debt would be illegal,” including those stemming from “payments under existing contracts.”^[1] Any goods attempting to make port would be met by the American naval blockade. Suddenly, General Electric could no longer ship new equipment, replace spare parts, send out service engineers, or even receive payment on the projects already in motion. Thus far, we have spoken at length on the intertwining of flows of power and revenue in electrical infrastructures. This era instead offers a window into how infrastructure can function when divorced from its financial underpinnings.

To the surprise of international observers, Iraq’s efforts to rebuild the electricity sector under comprehensive sanctions were largely successful. While unable to bring their generation capacity above demand, Iraq’s electrical system restored a reliable level of service to Baghdad with scheduled outages for other regions. Without access to new turbines to meet growing consumption, Iraq engineers were forced to make the most out of the turbines they had. Fortunately, Iraqi engineers had full autonomy over restoring and maintaining their infrastructure now that they were no longer subject to General Electric’s service agreements. A senior Iraqi woman engineer recalled how she led a team of engineers to create “alternative designs” from “bombing debris and locally manufactured materials.”^[2] Their lack of equipment became a source for innovation, finding time and resources for the operation to run “smoothly” and follow through with 98% of projects.^[3] Their accomplishments were exceptional even by international standards. Iraq witnessed the drop in electricity losses down to 3.8% of generation at a time when nations worldwide averaged upwards of 8.4%.^[4] In six years, the country’s power production exceeded its pre-war peak.^[5]