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'Liberating' the New Diyala Bridge, which was built
80 years ago by the British who were then 'Liberating' Iraq.
A month ago:
"U.S. Marine jets Tuesday attacked two bridges across the Euphrates River
near the Syrian border to prevent insurgents from moving foreign fighters and
munitions toward Baghdad and other cities, the U.S. command said.
... A Marine statement said F/A-18 jets dropped bombs shortly after midnight
on two light bridges near Karabilah, about 185 miles west of Baghdad."
U.S.
Marine Jets Bomb 2 Bridges in Iraq September 6, 2005
Now, they have bombed eight more bridges there:
"US-led forces have bombed eight bridges on the Euphrates River in western
Iraq to stop insurgents using them, US military spokesperson Major General Rick
Lynch said Thursday.
"We have been taking out portions of bridges with precision strikes,"
he told a news conference.Of 12 bridges between the Syrian border and Ramadi,
110km west Baghdad, "four remain under control of the coalition forces
and Iraqi forces after precision strikes on the others," he said.
... "We took out portions of these bridges to deny terrorists, foreign
fighters and insurgents the capability to cross north to south or south to north
across the Euphrates River."
US
forces bomb Iraq's Euphrates bridges October 6, 2005
However, the Iraqi Resistance report that some of these bridges are
'restructured' for use within days. That is why the Americans hit them repeatedly,
as in the above case. Hence, one would expect further 'precision stikes' against
these same bridges soon.
It would be appropriate here recalling Riverbend's early take on "rebuilding"
Iraq's bridges:
"One of my cousins works in a prominent engineering company in Baghdad-
we’ll call the company H. This company is well-known for designing and
building bridges all over Iraq. My cousin, a structural engineer, is a bridge
freak. He spends hours talking about pillars and trusses and steel structures
to anyone who’ll listen.
As May was drawing to a close, his manager told him that someone from the CPA
wanted the company to estimate the building costs of replacing the New Diyala
Bridge on the South East end of Baghdad. He got his team together, they went
out and assessed the damage, decided it wasn’t too extensive, but it would
be costly. They did the necessary tests and analyses (mumblings about soil composition
and water depth, expansion joints and girders) and came up with a number they
tentatively put forward- $300,000. This included new plans and designs, raw
materials (quite cheap in Iraq), labor, contractors, travel expenses, etc.
Let’s pretend my cousin is a dolt. Let’s pretend he hasn’t
been working with bridges for over 17 years. Let’s pretend he didn’t
work on replacing at least 20 of the 133 bridges damaged during the first Gulf
War. Let’s pretend he’s wrong and the cost of rebuilding this bridge
is four times the number they estimated- let’s pretend it will actually
cost $1,200,000. Let’s just use our imagination.
A week later, the New Diyala Bridge contract was given to an American company.
This particular company estimated the cost of rebuilding the bridge would be
around- brace yourselves- $50,000,000 !!"
The
Promise and the Threat August 28, 2003 entry