War’s Over Indicator No. 52
$3 billion subway planned for Baghdad. Either the war’s over, or some bright Iraqi bureaucrat familiar with the Big Dig saw how $3 billion can turn into $14 billion worth of cost overruns and good jobs at good wages.
In a city where raw waste often spills from an antique sewer system, where power goes off hourly, no postal service exists and where public transport has long been a fantasy, lofty ideas have recently been capturing imaginations.
In October, planning got under way for an above-ground commuter train line in the city’s west, which is set to remove thousands of cars from an approach into Baghdad known as bomb alley. And throughout the weeks since, a series of roads, and one highly symbolic bridge, have again been reopened to cars and pedestrians. The al-Aaimmah bridge linking the mostly Sunni neighbourhood of Adhamiya and the predominantly Shia district of Khademiya was opened last Tuesday three years after nearly a thousand Shia pilgrims died in a stampede on the span.
Berlin-style walls put in place to keep Shias and Sunnis apart, have been gradually coming down. A 5-metre high barrier separating the Shia area of Abu Safeen and the Sunni zone of al-Fudal, was removed almost two months ago. Violence has yet to return.
Baghdad’s civic planners seem intent on making connections. But the small steps they have taken so far pale next to the grand plan for a metro.
A train line under Baghdad was first flagged under Saddam Hussein during the 1970s, but shelved owing to three decades of war, blockades and invasion.
One of the new proposed subway lines would run 11 miles from Shia-dominated Sadr City in the east to Adhamiya in north Baghdad.
Once upon a time they’d call that the longest rail line in the world.
The other would traverse 13 miles and link mixed central Baghdad to the primarily Sunni western suburbs.
Both lines would have 20 stations each and run through a patchwork quilt of sectarian neighbourhoods, which largely remain divided, despite the security improvements. Bombs still rattle Baghdad daily, but on a much smaller scale than the violence that ravaged the capital throughout 2006-07.
“If anyone suggested a train back then, they would have been sent to one of Saddam’s old mental homes and never heard from again,” said an incredulous Umm Fatimah, 41, from the suburb of Karada. “Even now it does seem a bit crazy, but not as crazy as then.”
Not as crazy as a year ago either, apparently.
Another Karada resident, Nazem al-Qasemi, said something had to be done to sort out Baghdad’s chronically clogged arterial roads. “Look at it,” he said, waving a hand at a gridlocked roundabout. “Even if this is just talking, at least it’s giving us hope.”
The project’s engineer Atta Nabil Hussain Auni Atta, of Iraq’s transport ministry, said old 1970s blueprints for the underground line were being redrawn to bring it up to speed with the specifications of modern railways.
They aren’t exactly saying where the money is supposed to come from. Looking for investors. Good luck with that.
Hot Air calls it what victory looks like. No kidding. The freedom to dream big. The idea of connecting neighborhood before they’ve even knocked all the walls down.
Gateway with a victory declaration.
Topics: Iraq
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:11 pm on Wednesday, November 19, 2008
2 Responses to “War’s Over Indicator No. 52”
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November 19th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Peace, democracy, and big dreams. A potent combination, as Iraq’s neighbors will soon find out.
I’m loving the sarcastic comments on the Hot Air site from Bishop:
Sure sure, the terrorists have been defeated, but:
Can gays get married in Tikrit?
Can abortions be done on a Baghdad sidewalk?
Do transgendered interpretive-dance professors have the right to hold nude parades through Anbar province?
NO! We won….but have we really won?
Bishop on November 19, 2008 at 8:47 AM
I’ll ask again:
Is there even one Iraqi living without free college tuition?
Are there Iraqis living in apartments at which they are actually expected to pay rent?
Does the Iraqi government support the right of someone to publicly take a dump on a canvas and call it “street art?”
Is this really victory? *sobs*
Bishop on November 19, 2008 at 8:59 AM
November 19th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
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