February 15, 1999, Monday, Edition 1

 SECTION: NEWS

 LENGTH: 764 words

 HEADLINE: IRAQ BATTLES WATER CRISIS
 

 BYLINE: Olivia Ward

 BODY:
 Disease rife as crumbling plants fail to cope
 

 EUROPEAN BUREAU
 BAGHDAD - You know something is wrong in Baghdad's waterworks
 when you walk through the courtyard of its headquarters past
 three filthy stagnant pools.
 The pools, like the region's crumbling Water Supply
 Administration building, have seen better days.
 Any doubts about the parlous state of things vanish when you hear
 peals of laughter from the guards as you tell them you're on the
 way to the director's office - a journey they know is up seven
 flights of unlit stairs, unaided by an elevator that's given up
 the ghost along with the electricity.
 ''Water is the key to many of our problems,'' says Wasim Abdul
 Karim, head of the design department, which serves the 5 million
 people in the Baghdad region. ''If it isn't good, people are in
 serious trouble. But unfortunately every year things are getting
 worse instead of better.''
 During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, widespread bombing devastated
 Iraq's infrastructure.
 A report done after the end of the war by international
 humanitarian group Medecins sans frontieres (Doctors Without
 Borders) said that in Baghdad and the south of the country, ''all
 sanitary infrastruc- tures have gone, and not a single hospital
 is in a position to provide the most elementary of
 infrastructures.''
 The bombing smashed mains, pipe networks and treatment plants, as
 well as the already leaky sewage pipes. Since then, water
 authorities all over the arid country have been playing a
 desperate game of catch up.
 Under sanctions that have clamped off Iraq's lucrative oil trade
 and barred normal trade relations with the rest of the world,
 chemicals and spare parts needed to rejuvenate the system have
 been limited.
 The United Nations oil-for-food program allows Iraq to sell a
 quota of oil and use the profits for food, medicines and other
 vital items. But in spite of a boost in the quota, which would
 allow $200 million (U.S.) to be spent on sanitation supplies, the
 water system is still in crisis.
 ''It's the problem that's behind all of Iraq's humanitarian
 disaster,'' says a Western diplomat who asked not to be named.
 ''Giving people more food and medicine can only do so much good
 if they get sick from the water.''
 Diarrhea, cholera and other intestinal diseases regularly kill
 children in Iraq, and last spring Baghdad's main children's
 hospital alone reported six deaths a day during an epidemic.
 Many children are chronically underweight, and aid workers say
 it's impossible to restore them to health unless the water
 problem is tackled.
 ''Of course it's terribly frustrating and depressing,'' says
 Adnan Abdullah, chief of the water administration's laboratories.
 ''There are so many things wrong we know we can't correct them
 during the foreseeable future.''
 'Water is the key to many of our problems'
 Baghdad's water woes start with the ancient Tigris River, which
 once attracted the founders of world civilization to build their
 huts along its banks, but is now murky with mud and sediment.
 Chlorine and other chemicals needed to purify the water are
 scarce, and the engineers have to cut down the amount of water
 they can treat.
 The treatment plants themselves are old, and in desperate need of
 replacement.
 And the networks of pipes, 10,000 kilometres of cracked and
 leaking metal laid down 50 years ago, soak up pollution from
 sewage-infested groundwater.
 ''Normally we'd treat the water again in neighbourhood water
 stations,'' says Abdullah. ''But we don't have enough chlorine
 for more than one processing.''
 Added to the water experts' headaches, are chronic power
 shortages. In the summer, when temperatures rise above 50 C, even
 a few minutes without electrically powered cooling can be
 dangerous to the plants.
 ''Algae and bacteria grow, and that means an increase in the
 disease curve,'' says Abdullah.
 In the summer, too, the most critical problems plague water
 experts throughout Iraq.
 In Baghdad alone, there's a constant shortfall of 2.5 million
 cubic metres of water a day. That's likely to get worse with
 another sizzling summer, and increasing wastage of water from
 leaky pipes.
 ''Water system repairs take a long time,'' says Karim. ''We are
 terribly worried about the next two or three years, as pressure
 for more water builds and equipment ages. If sanctions ended
 tomorrow we'd still be in crisis.'