
Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people - larrymcp
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/02/mosul-dam-engineers-warn-it-could-fail-at-any-time-killing-1m-people
======
jamesfe
I was a Marine in Iraq from 06-09. We constantly built plans for the
inevitable demise of this dam. Mostly just estimates of how screwed people
would be.

I'm surprised it's not blown yet, I was constantly worried someone would bomb
it somehow, but 7 years later, it's still standing, so I'm unsure about any
estimates given now - the Iraqis were fairly liberal in their estimates in
2006 (it'll fall by 2007) and the same predictions followed every year. Of
course, they wanted vast quantities of money to fix it (and skim off the top
for themselves) so there was some bias.

Check out the Haditha Dam too. Another large body of water held back by aging
infrastructure further destroyed by looters who dismantled huge pieces of
machinery to sell as scrap for $0.05/lb.

~~~
jksmith
Surprised that some big infrastructure company like Halli or Bechtel didn't
see an opportunity to scheme some business from this.

~~~
raisedbyninjas
Rebuilding Mosul is more lucrative that maintenance on Mosul dam?

~~~
jksmith
Indeed! Good thinking. Rebuild dam and city. Funded by US loans of course.

~~~
samstave
That's the business model of the IMF.

Would you prefer to be paved in gold or bombs?

~~~
noonespecial
Fun fact: The gold is almost certainly cheaper in the long run.

------
atdt
> The dam was designed by a Swiss firm of consultants and built by a German-
> Italian consortium in 1984. Water began seeping through in 1986, when it
> became apparent that the geological issues were worse than the consultants
> had predicted.

I doubt that this was an innocent failure on their part. There was a huge
financial incentive for these firms to find some way to validate this project.

Successive foreign consultants warned about the risk of building this dam on
water-soluble bedrock. The risk was not subtle.

The planning documents for this dam should be scrutinized very closely for
evidence of omission or manipulation of data, and the firms involved should be
investigated. And if they are found culpable, they should participate in the
costs of shoring up the dam. They have played a part in this mess.

~~~
thomasz
I just don't understand why you assume that the risks were not disclosed to
the government. In my eyes, it's way more likely that the government decided
to go ahead anyway. This was one of Saddam Hussein's prestige projects -
telling him that it couldn't be done could've been fatal.

~~~
ethbro
So, crazy idea (and completely inapplicable here, because dictatorship). Is
there any government in the word that has an empowered "science" branch of
government as a check and balance?

I'm not suggesting science is apolitical, but I feel like there's some merit
to "We wanted to build a broken dam because {political considerations}, but
the {science branch} vetoed it."

Kind of like a Supreme Court, except informed by scientific knowledge rather
than law.

~~~
avivo
I wish! Though implementation would be tricky and might heavily politicize
science in a bad way (as opposed to a good way; which could also happen). The
closest I've seen anywhere to that is in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy.

Here's an excerpt from the "Martian Constitution" in the accompanying book
"The Martians": """All laws passed by the congress shall also be subject to
review by the constitutional and environmental courts, and a veto by these
courts cannot be overridden, but shall be grounds for rewriting the law if the
congress sees fit, after which the process of passing the law shall begin
again."""

I found the rest here:
[http://pastebin.com/YeR74Yyb](http://pastebin.com/YeR74Yyb)

~~~
ethbro
Good find. I remember the constitution they hammered out in the books was
interesting, as there was a lot of Aldo Leopold "think like a mountain" stuff.

(Of course, in the book, they've discovered a genetic repair mechanism that
effectively makes people immortal, so I suppose it's still self interest)

------
foota
This picture on wikipedia of the dam has a really beautiful contrast between
the water and the land around it
([https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/Mo...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/MosulDam-
July2012-01.JPG/1920px-MosulDam-July2012-01.JPG)) Also draws attention to the
fact that there's a massive amount of water behind the dam.

edit: wiki link:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam),
to save you the effort of googling :)

~~~
LoSboccacc
> formerly known as Saddam Dam

such an opportunity lost to call it SadDam

~~~
StavrosK
:( Damn.

~~~
joojia
SadDamnit!

~~~
sanoli
If the dam knew how it was built, it would be a sad dam.

------
ryanmarsh
So many indignant comments here by people who've surely never seen how large
construction projects work in third world countries.

Try to keep in mind that the average civil engineer has the same amount of
integrity as you do. Maybe more because lives are at stake. How construction
projects get green lit in third world countries often follows an unorthodox
set of practices far removed from the engineers who are told to "just make it
work". Sound familiar?

------
x0x0
There's a paper by some professors at Mosul Univ discussing the dam.
Apparently it's built on gypsum and has been patched by continuous filling
with cement; the current problems stem from incorrect construction in the 80s.

The professors game out 5 catastrophic failures. They range from a wall of
water 25m high that would eventually cover over 50% of Mosul city (high) to a
mere 34% of the city (best case.) Maximal water levels would be reached within
6 hours. Reading between the lines, I get the sense there is no serious and/or
realistic evacuation plan. Not to mention I think Mosul is ruled by ISIS, so
coordination with the Iraqi government and/or external dam repair personnel is
presumably limited.

edit: with much of Baghdad itself under 4m water within 3 days after collapse.
Which probably allows time for evacuation at least, though that's small
comfort.

[http://www.iwtc.info/2009_pdf/4-1.pdf](http://www.iwtc.info/2009_pdf/4-1.pdf)

~~~
mlonkibjuyhv
This sounds like biblical history in the making...

------
mratzloff
If the dam breaks, ISIS will be judged responsible for more deaths than the
atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Maintenance on the dam almost
entirely stopped when ISIS took over, and the grouting machines required for
maintaining it were looted. And the dead will be Sunni Muslims--their own
"citizens", those who didn't flee when ISIS took control of Mosul.

It will be the lasting legacy of ISIS.

Surely this is a factor in the timing of the US-led effort currently underway
to retake Mosul from ISIS, backed by the Iraqi Army.

~~~
Loughla
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that's not how this will be viewed
in a local/regional context. My guess is the local boys just trying to survive
won't be seen as the problem when compared to the international imperialists
and dictators we seem to be viewed as.

Just a guess, really, but on an international level, we'll know the truth.
But, I'm guessing this dam(n) failure will be yet another successful
recruiting tool for ISIS and the like.

Anyone with a head for middle-eastern politics and terrorist recruiting
tactics around to respond?

------
jrockway
John Oliver did a pretty good piece on infrastructure:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpzvaqypav8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpzvaqypav8)

No politician gets to cut a ribbon with a giant pair of scissors when they
fund routine maintenance. So why bother.

~~~
ajuc
The fix seems easy - do cut the ribbon in such cases.

~~~
jrockway
That was the thought that went through my mind when I first watched that
piece. I think I'm unusually excited by incremental improvement and routine
maintenance though.

~~~
ArkyBeagle
Me too. There is something wrong with us. :)

~~~
ajuc
You're not alone.
[http://www.skyscrapercity.com/](http://www.skyscrapercity.com/) :)

------
gioele
This is the bigger version of the Vajont Dam's tragedy of the '60s that killed
two thousand people and wrecked an entire province. [1]

> At 10:39 P.M., a massive landslide of about 260,000,000 cubic metres
> (340,000,000 cu yd) of forest, earth, and rock fell into the reservoir at up
> to 110 kilometres per hour (68 mph), completely filling the narrow reservoir
> behind the dam. The landslide was complete in just 45 seconds, much faster
> than predicted, and the resulting displacement of water caused 50,000,000
> cubic metres (65,000,000 cu yd) of water to overtop the dam in a 250-metre
> (820 ft) high wave.

> This event occurred when the company and the Italian government dismissed
> evidence and concealed reports describing the geological instability of
> Monte Toc on the southern side of the basin, and other early warning signs
> reported prior to the disaster.

> Numerous warnings, signs of danger, and negative appraisals had been
> disregarded, and the eventual attempt to safely control the landslide into
> the lake by lowering its level came when the landslide was almost imminent
> and was too late to prevent it.

and also

> On 12 February 2008, while launching the International Year of Planet Earth,
> UNESCO cited the Vajont Dam tragedy as one of five "cautionary tales",
> caused by "the failure of engineers and geologists".

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajont_Dam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajont_Dam)

~~~
arethuza
Except that in the case of the Vajont Dam disaster that dam didn't actually
fail and is mostly still there.

------
sentenza
Drain it. Seriously.

Any other response is either unrealistically expensive/complicated or
reckless.

Sure, the Italian company could maintain it if they aren't attacked by ISIS,
but that is a big if when failure is immanent.

~~~
bjackman
Remember that the sluice gates are seized. Obviously they should still drain
it but it's not as simple as making the call.

~~~
rwallace
Would it suffice to just take a stick of dynamite to one of the seized gates?

~~~
adrianN
What could possibly go wrong?

~~~
acveilleux
Various forms of shaped charges and explosives could be used to open the
sluice gates but that would leave them permanently opened.

The main fear here is that if the dam reaches its design head, the water will
tunnel underneath and around the dam through the water soluble rocks. The dam
can't exceed the design head because of the spillway that is visible to the
south east of the dam.

So explosives could well be used to force open the sluice gates.

~~~
astrodust
> So explosives could well be used to force open the sluice gates.

This would make for a great Michael Bay movie, but real life doesn't work that
way.

------
dredmorbius
For the nearest comparable disaster, look up the Banqiao Dam Failure,
occurring in 1975 in China. It resulted in the deaths of 171,000 people in the
densly-populated downstream valley.

The circumstances of the failure are themselves instructive. Poor planning,
poor design, ignored engineering warnings (and banishment of the engineer in
question), inadequate safety presentations, a true monster of a storm (over 1
meter of water in 24 hours), miscommunications, _failed_ communications, no
downstream warning system, the inevitable dam failure, and a further cascade
of _additional_ dam failures, including many of which were blasted open with
artillery.

Only a relatively small number of the deaths were direcectly precipitated by
the flooding. Many resulted from disease and starvation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam?wprov=sfla1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam?wprov=sfla1)

The Mosul Dam could potentially dwarf this tragedy.

~~~
contravariant
>over 1 meter of water in 24 hours

That's the first time I've seen rain measured in _metres_ instead of
millimetres.

~~~
dredmorbius
Well, the official reports were in mm. But there were over a thousand of them.

------
james_pm
To give some sense of the scale of the disaster that would follow a failure,
the US considered bombing that dam and releasing all that water in response to
a potential chemical attack on US troops during Gulf War I, according to Colin
Powell
([http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/script_b.html](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/script_b.html)
\- search for dams).

~~~
TallGuyShort
They considered an attack that would have killed ~1M people, presumably mainly
civilians? _sigh_ smh

~~~
knowaveragejoe
To play devil's advocate here, any competent military would consider
possibilities like this. "War is hell" is said so often these days as to be
blasé, but it really is true.

~~~
akiselev
Are you saying that any competent military would consider racking up a
civilian death toll on the order of the Auschwitz death camp in the matter of
days?

Thank god the US military isn't competent then.

~~~
arethuza
Most major militaries have considered options that are orders of magnitude
worse.

~~~
knowaveragejoe
Not most, all.

Again, the concept that "war _is_ hell" doesn't seem to hit home for some
people.

~~~
TallGuyShort
It's hell because of stuff like this. What doesn't seem to hit home for some
people is that maybe your country isn't always "the good guys", and seriously
considering a plan like this (beyond investigating what would happen so you
can make the right decision when things start happening quickly) is precisely
what makes you the bad guy.

~~~
knowaveragejoe
The crux of your argument seems to rest on what "seriously considered" means.
Not saying the US is the "good guys" here, but they're doing their due
diligence, not trying to inflict the most damage purely out of rage or spite.

~~~
akiselev
In my opinion, that's the point. Acknowledging that there is a dam whose
collapse is capable of killing a million people is very different from
actively assigning military personnel to study how to compromise the dam and
flood the population for strategic gain. As the GP said, the statement "war is
hell" is only made true by our own behavior during wartime, not by any
universal law of the universe.

This is very murky territory no matter how you swing it

~~~
alphapapa
...What?

That dam generates a lot of electricity. In war, power plants are strategic
targets. It would be an obvious potential target to weaken the Iraqi military
and war machine.

So, the U.S. military studies the potential effects of destroying the dam. In
the end, it does not destroy the dam.

Fast forward a few years, and people like you are condemning the U.S. military
for...what? Figuring out that doing so would have resulted in many deaths, and
not doing so?

You're saying that they shouldn't have even studied the issue? What if the
enemy starts using it as a base of operations because they don't think it will
be attacked? Like people have said, war is hell, it's unpredictable. Something
unexpected could happen, something undesirable could become necessary. Without
having information like this already available, sound strategic decisions
can't be made. Then people like you would be complaining that they acted
rashly without studying the issue first.

If you're saying that the very act of studying the issue is wrong, that's
simply thoughtcrime, as well as incredibly naive.

~~~
TallGuyShort
There's a huge difference between "thinking" something and actively assigning
resources to study it in depth. And I don't see anyone calling for prosecution
in this entire thread. Criticizing, sure, but wouldn't you criticize me if I
spent time and resources trying to figure out how to kill tons of people? And
GP acknowledges the difference between studying what would happen if the dam
failed and how to simply kill massive numbers of civilians. Our point is that
you can't just say it's okay to kill 1M civilians because "war is hell", "war
is hell" because of stuff like that.

~~~
alphapapa
You've completely missed the point. "Whoosh."

And--perhaps ironically, from your point of view--the data and conclusions
from the military study of the dam probably lends weight to the urgency of
repairing it, thereby actually contributing to saving lives.

You've also neglected to consider that the dam could be attacked by _anyone_ ,
including terrorists, competing regional forces, and (perhaps in Desert Storm)
the Iraqis themselves. Imagine if Saddam Hussein had threatened to destroy the
dam and kill millions of people unless the invading armies left.

Without knowing what would happen, it would not be possible to make a sound
strategic decision, prepare for relief and evacuation, etc. It's better for
everyone to know what would happen if the dam were attacked.

What you're advocating is naive ignorance.

------
s_q_b
I've had six civil engineers tell me that that dam has 6-months at maximum.
The odds of collapse within that period ranged from 80-95% in estimates.

~~~
arcadeparade
Is it because of the coming snow melt? Or just time is running out?

~~~
s_q_b
Unexhaustively: snow melt, fighting season, lack of maintenance.

------
yread
Interesting that Hoover Dam mentioned elsewhere in the thread also had
problems with geology of the rocks under it and had to be fixed in a hacky way
by additional grouting for 12 years after completion

[http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/hoover_dam/Grout%20Curtain%20Fa...](http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/hoover_dam/Grout%20Curtain%20Failure-
Hoover%20Dam.pdf)

~~~
alphapapa
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing.

------
ctdonath
Has/could someone at least set up some cameras recording 24/7 to document the
inevitable collapse in detail?

~~~
yiyus
I am afraid that the amount of vapor would not let us to see too much. But I
totally agree, somebody please set up some cameras.

------
brohee
Iraq was altogether a different country when it was built, but infrastructure
that can fail killing 1M people unless maintained 24/7 by a 300 person crew
sounds like it has way too many failure scenario for comfort.

AFAIK you can abandon the Hoover dam and it will still be there in 500 years.
It looks like the Mosul dam engineers couldn't achieve remotely the same
result given the soil it's built on, but there must have been overwhelming
reasons to build it despite the risks...

~~~
yourapostasy
> AFAIK you can abandon the Hoover dam and it will still be there in 500
> years.

Yes, Hoover dam is quite the civil engineering and project management feat.
It's structural lifespan in the absence of maintenance (the turbines will go
inoperative in months to years in the absence of maintenance) is estimated in
the thousands of years range. [1]

[http://zidbits.com/2013/05/how-long-will-the-hoover-dam-
last...](http://zidbits.com/2013/05/how-long-will-the-hoover-dam-last/)

~~~
daodedickinson
I never got to the Hoover dam in New Vegas... I wonder how realistically it
was depicted.

~~~
mratzloff
About as realistically as the National Mall in Fallout 3, that is, smaller in
scale and very simplified.

------
salgernon
An article from 2007:

    
    
      http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7069109.stm
    

With a similar conclusion mentions that the water resources minister kept much
of the discussions about how to proceed with the dam maintenance out of the
public eye to avoid bringing the issues to the attention of insurgents.

~~~
acqq
That still has nothing to do with the obligations of the US who were in charge
of Iraq since 2003.

Salgernon posted the link documenting how much the US engaged (hint:
minimally, compared to what was needed to fix the issue):

[http://the-reaction.blogspot.com/2007/10/god-really-doesnt-l...](http://the-
reaction.blogspot.com/2007/10/god-really-doesnt-like-bush-much.html)

------
martinpw
Here is a 2015 paper with a detailed technical analysis. The first author on
this paper is the Iraqi engineer interviewed in this Guardian article.

[http://pure.ltu.se/portal/files/102425643/Vol_5_3_8.pdf](http://pure.ltu.se/portal/files/102425643/Vol_5_3_8.pdf)

------
VeejayRampay
They should call the Dutch. They're the best at dams.

EDIT: Retrospectively, my comment is not necessarily appropriate. As much as
the Dutch are good at building dams, it's obvious that the situation is dire
and has more to do with security and military conflict. My apologies for being
insensitive.

~~~
BetaCygni
We're very good at dikes. We don't have much practice with hydroelectric dams
though ;)

------
Tistel
Are there any articles about how/why the sluice gates are seized? Is it
sediment blocking them? Or did something mechanical break? I would like to
hear from an engineer. I know that the US Corps of Engineers has probably been
to it during the various wars. I know the overall problem is the porous rock
and whole dam collapsing (which is horrible for the locals), I am just curious
what the best way to relieve the pressure to buy time.

~~~
fapjacks
Software engineer here (chuckle). I spent a lot of time in Iraq, some of that
time guarding infrastructure. The thing about most of that stuff -- and my
guess in this case -- is that the machinery is rusted. The door may be
physically jammed by silt or something, as well, but I would put my money on
the machinery to open the doors being rusted or otherwise destroyed/removed by
looters. This is the case with the vast majority of stuff like that in Iraq:
If you weren't standing next to it with a machine gun, someone would carry off
the parts to sell for scrap. Or at least nobody would come by to oil the parts
and make sure they function properly. The thing with rusting machinery also is
something of a cultural/religious phenomena, i.e. "it is the will of Allah"
that this equipment is rusting, and therefore I should not perform maintenance
on it. The Iraqi Army was hard to train for a number of reasons, but
particularly in equipment maintenance for this reason. "Clean your weapon" ...
"But it is the will of Allah that it is rusting" ...

~~~
utku_karatas2
> "Clean your weapon" ... "But it is the will of Allah that it is rusting"

Oh :)

Not a cultural/religious phenomena. That is just a sarcastic way to ignore
someone. This way of passive resistance is kinder (and safer in context) than
to outright say "piss off". Everything is considered will of God in Islam
anyways - from someone moving a finger to celestial events.

When an Arab tells you "if it's the will of God" or "tomorrow" you are most
likely on your own, nothing is going to get done. True for most of the
muslims; more true for most of the Arabs. Source: a muslim.

~~~
fapjacks
Sure, that much is obvious, I just felt like "cultural/religious phenomena"
was the best descriptor instead of saying something like "Them A-rabs are just
super lazy".

------
hypertexthero
This reminded me of this story in the current issue of The New Yorker
<[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/07/the-man-who-
mad...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/07/the-man-who-made-
millions-off-the-afghan-war>)

------
dghughes
It seems to be a lost cause why not break open the jammed sluice gates one at
a time to gradually let water through and let off at least some of the
pressure? And then just leave them open.

It seems pointless to continually fix a dam with such design flaws and needing
constant repair.

------
ryao
It sounds like having a dam is riskier than the alternative of not having a
dam. Why not try draining the resouvoir and dismantling the dam?

------
ilaksh
Either do an emergency maintenance now or do a real evacuation.

------
Grishnakh
To add to my prior comment, it seems like expending military resources to
retake this area is a waste, since the citizens there support ISIS. Instead of
getting soldiers killed fighting to "liberate" people who probably don't want
to be liberated, maybe they should have just dropped a bunch of leaflets on
Mosul, explaining that the dam isn't being maintained under ISIS control, and
without maintenance will fail in a few years, causing a massive flood and
killing most of the people in Mosul. So if they want to avoid this, it's up to
them to rise up and revolt against ISIS. If they don't, oh well. If you're not
willing to fight for your own survival and freedom, then maybe you don't
deserve it, and you really have no right to expect others to do the dirty work
for you and hand you these things on a silver platter.

~~~
ansible
_So if they want to avoid this, it 's up to them to rise up and revolt against
ISIS. If they don't, oh well. If you're not willing to fight for your own
survival and freedom, then maybe you don't deserve it, and you really have no
right to expect others to do the dirty work for you and hand you these things
on a silver platter._

And these people back in 2003 were asking for the USA-led coalition to invade
their own country, topple the government, wreck the country's infrastructure,
and leave a power-vacuum in its place? A vacuum filled in by local warlords
and ethnic-cleansing militias?

I dispute the idea that we in the West have no responsibility here to help.

~~~
Grishnakh
Unless you're a GOP voter (and not a Trump voter), then it's obvious that in
2003, Iraqis were not asking for their country to be invaded.

However, since we made such a mess of it before, what makes you think we're
going to do any better with another invasion and setting up another unpopular
government? The people in that region don't like the government we set up
because the Shias are too powerful; they want a government like what they had
before, where the Sunnis have all the power, and the Shias and Kurds get
stomped on. Are you willing to give them that government? If not, you're not
going to get their support, and ISIS (or similar) is.

You may claim that the West has a responsibility to help, but I claim that the
West _cannot_ help, and that there is no way for us, a bunch of outsiders, to
make the situation better. Only the people there can fix the problem for
themselves. We cannot do it for them. If we try, we will fail, and they will
not appreciate it or agree with our methods.

~~~
EdHominem
> The people in that region don't like the government we set up [...]

And they didn't like all those borders we drew for them.

Ungrateful lot, I say.

~~~
Grishnakh
Well, that goes right back to what I said about them not appreciating our
methods.

Yes, a lot of this mess is due to the way the British drew the borders there
in the wake of WWI. However, has there been any effort to redraw those
borders? Hell no. The Kurds would certainly like to see the borders redrawn;
it's obvious to anyone with a brain and some idea of the situation there that
the borders are making the problems worse, but no one with power wants to
change the borders. There's too many vested interests who want to keep their
borders: Turkey doesn't want to cede any land to the Kurds (it has oil on it
IIRC). Iraq doesn't want to cede any land to the Kurds (oil again). The Sunnis
in Iraq don't want to lose control of the country because their portion has no
oil. The Shias in Iraq would be happy to separate from the Sunnis because they
do have oil. Saudi Arabia doesn't want the Shias to take control of the oil-
rich areas and leave the Sunnis with a bunch of sand, because the Saudis are
also Sunni and hate Shias. It's just a total mess, and pushing ourselves on
the place yet again to try to fix it is going to be just as successful as the
last time we tried. The only way to really fix it is to invade the whole
region, take it ALL over (including SA and Iran and Turkey too, even though
this could start a war with Europe, might as well throw in Egypt and Israel
while we're at it), then redraw all the borders and set up all new governments
run by dictators for a while. Obviously that's not going to happen, so the
only sane alternative is to just stay out of it, except maybe for lending a
little assistance here and there to deal with really awful groups like ISIS
where pretty much everyone (including Russia) agrees that they need to go.

~~~
EdHominem
> everyone (including Russia) agrees

Russia doesn't care about ISIS - Russian soldiers shot down a commercial
airliner.

> the only sane alternative is to just stay out of it

"Stay" implies that we're out and not going in. Cutting and running would be
closer to the truth in this case...

Your argument is that we should just walk away from the mess we've created
because it looks hard to solve. "Whups, pouring gasoline on it didn't put it
out, let's take off and grab a beer."

None of these "leave the area to solve its own problems" ever include actually
leaving, just continuing our meddling from a distance. It'd do a lot of good
if we simply stopped backing the wrong side. We give Turkey a fair bit of
assistance in keeping the kurdish areas under control, not the least of which
is calling Kurdish independence movements terrorists.

> However, has there been any effort to redraw those borders? Hell no.

Well actually, yes. You know the Kurds - they've been trying to redraw them
since the ink was wet. Something about genocide...

~~~
Grishnakh
>Russia doesn't care about ISIS - Russian soldiers shot down a commercial
airliner.

WTF does that have to do with ISIS? That was in Ukraine.

Russia didn't mean to shoot down a commercial airliner. They thought it was a
Ukrainian military cargo plane. Of course, when they found out it wasn't, they
tried to cover it up because they were claiming the Russian army wasn't in
Ukraine to begin with and that those were Ukrainian "rebels". But it's not
like they actually meant to shoot down a passenger plane.

As for ISIS, yes they do care about ISIS. Russia backs the Assad regime,
because they want access to Syria's port on the Mediterranian Sea. ISIS
threatens the Assad regime, so ISIS is their natural enemy, along with anyone
else who threatens the Assad regime.

And honestly, we should be backing the Assad regime too (or at least now
working against it). It's the best hope that country has for stability. All
the rebel groups are Islamists, so they're worse for stability and worse for
human rights and worse for minority group rights. This happens every time we
topple some "evil dictator" over there: it turns out the dictator was actually
very tolerant of religious or ethnic minorities, as long as they didn't try to
overthrow him (case in point: the Yazidis in Iraq). But then we topple the
dictator, some "democratic" government gets installed that's mostly Islamists,
and the minorities get stomped on. Nations in that region need dictators, not
democracy.

>"Stay" implies that we're out and not going in. Cutting and running would be
closer to the truth in this case...

Any why is that wrong? We're not willing to improve the situation there, we're
only willing to make it worse. Proof: that's all we've done.

>It'd do a lot of good if we simply stopped backing the wrong side.

Yeah, and it'd do a lot of good if humans stopped having wars, and stopped
being selfish. I don't see that happening any time soon.

>We give Turkey a fair bit of assistance in keeping the kurdish areas under
control, not the least of which is calling Kurdish independence movements
terrorists.

Exactly. So how do we change that? Simple: we don't, because we're not willing
to change that. The politics are too complicated (Turkey is a NATO member
after all), so we're not willing to directly oppose Turkey and ally ourselves
with the Kurds and promote independence there.

As I see it, we have options: 1) stop backing the wrong side as you say, and
start working to improve things there, or 2) get out. Well, we're obviously
not willing to do #1, we've been doing the opposite of #1 for decades now, no
matter who gets elected President, so that only leaves one choice, #2.

>Well actually, yes. You know the Kurds

 _They 've_ been trying to redraw borders, yes; what I meant was, has there
been any effort by Western powers to redraw those borders (since the complaint
here is how we screwed up in how we (after WWI) drew those borders to begin
with. And the answer there is no. The western powers have done absolutely
nothing to try to redraw the borders. Some groups there would like new
borders, but other groups don't (the ones who want new borders usually sit on
valuable resources that the other ones want to maintain control of), and we
back the wrong sides consistently, so we don't.

~~~
EdHominem
> Russia didn't mean to shoot down a commercial airliner. They thought it was
> a Ukrainian military cargo plane. Of course, when they found out it wasn't,
> they tried to cover it up because

But when they were found to have done it, it was covered up. And yes, because
it would have interfered with another lie of theirs, not that it's a defense.

> Russia backs the Assad regime, because they want access to Syria's port on
> the Mediterranian Sea. ISIS threatens the Assad regime

As I said. Russia doesn't care about ISIS, Russia cares about a handy puppet
state. If ISIS turned back-around into Iraq Russia would stop fighting them.
If Russia kills more people than ISIS in freeing the country they won't care
at all.

> we should be backing the Assad regime too

Hmmm, yeah. No. Shooting ISIS is awesome, helping a dictator is not. If we
actually collaborate to help Assad hold the Syrians hostage, we're as bad as
ISIS.

> Exactly. So how do we change that? Simple: we don't, because we're not
> willing to

Because you're far enough from the problem that blowback rarely hits you. If
you actually faced even a small percentage of the problems you caused from it
you wouldn't be able to lose interest so often.

The truth is that ISIS isn't a big issue to the USA as long as oil flows.
You're not willing to - for the cost/benefit in this case.

> has there been any effort by Western powers to redraw those borders

No, in fact Western powers sold Iraq poison gas to avoid the issue.

But the fact of the matter is that isolationism doesn't work. Terrorists will
bring the war to you, especially if you're perceived as having meddled.

Commit to fixing it, or expect to paying for more over time as you continually
half-fix it.

~~~
Grishnakh
>But when they were found to have done it, it was covered up. And yes, because
it would have interfered with another lie of theirs, not that it's a defense.

You were trying to claim that Russia intentionally shot down a passenger
plane, when it's obvious that they didn't.

>As I said. Russia doesn't care about ISIS, Russia cares about a handy puppet
state. If ISIS turned back-around into Iraq Russia would stop fighting them.
If Russia kills more people than ISIS in freeing the country they won't care
at all.

So, yes, Russia _DOES_ care about ISIS. If ISIS magically teleported to the
Moon and turned into pink unicorns, then Russia would stop caring about them,
but that's about as likely as ISIS turning around and staying in Iraq, so it's
pointless to discuss such possibilities.

>Hmmm, yeah. No. Shooting ISIS is awesome, helping a dictator is not. If we
actually collaborate to help Assad hold the Syrians hostage, we're as bad as
ISIS.

And you're as clueless as George W Bush. How do you propose to deal with the
power vacuum when you get rid of ISIS and Assad? Just let the other Islamist
groups like Al Nusra take over? Great plan! Or no, I know, let's have
elections and set up a democracy!! Yeah, that worked so great in Egypt, where
they elected the Muslim Brotherhood!

And how are the Syrians being "held hostage" anyway? A large chunk of the
Syrian population wants the Assad regime, just like a large chunk of the Iraqi
population was happy with the Saddam regime.

You have three choices: back a dictator, help Islamists overthrow the
dictator, or stay out of it. I don't see how #2, your choice, is at all
morally defensible.

>Commit to fixing it, or expect to paying for more over time as you
continually half-fix it.

You haven't actually come up with any kind of viable plan to "fix" the
problem, other than putting more people like ISIS and Al Qaeda in charge.

~~~
EdHominem
> You were trying

I know what I'm trying. And you're wrong. I'm not claiming Putin wanted an
airliner shot down. I'm saying that when Putin's forces shot down an airliner
he kept supporting them.

In other words, Russia doesn't care.

> So, yes, Russia DOES care about ISIS.

No. Because if ISIS wandered off into Iraq, they'd be done.

>> If we actually collaborate > How do you propose to deal with the power
vacuum

You want to plug it with a dictator? Brilliant.

> how are the Syrians being "held hostage" anyway?

Their dictator has ordered his security forces to fire on civilians.

> A large chunk of the Syrian population wants the Assad regime

Got a fair vote that shows that? And see below.

> just like a large chunk of the Iraqi population was happy with the Saddam
> regime.

Yeah, those in his good books, whose power came from him.

But it's irrelevant anyways because even popular support for an illegal
government (ie, not recognizing human rights) doesn't legitimize it.

> You haven't actually come up with any kind of viable plan to "fix" the
> problem

Move the goalposts much? It's not the job of the guy who says "Stop throwing
gas on the fire" to have the entire roadmap planned out.

You're the one who proposes we take an active stance - to shift our alliances
and protect a dictator we'd previously told to leave power. You want to commit
military resources. The burden of proof is on _you_.

------
Grishnakh
You can blame ISIS all you want, but aren't the 1M people who'll be affected
by this basically supporters of ISIS? As you said, they're ISIS's own
citizens. So basically they're being hoist by their own petard.

Every nation gets the government it deserves.

~~~
stellar678
Do you seriously believe that an organization known for publicly beheading
people, imposing arbitrary violent pseudo-Islamic rule, cultural genocide,
etc... is supported by a significant part of the population of the territory
they took over?

The answer is - no, they are not basically supporters of ISIS. A few certainly
are, but not many. They're people trapped under the tyrannical rule of
strongmen who came to power in a vacuum because ... the people did not have
the government they deserve.

~~~
Grishnakh
They may or may not have the government they _want_ , but they certainly have
the government they _deserve_. Every nation of people does.

If you're not willing to stand up and fight when a tiny number of people is
oppressing you, then why do you deserve anything better? Who else is supposed
to liberate you? Do you think that you're entitled to having a bunch of
foreigners come risk their lives to liberate you from your own people (ISIS is
headed by people who are native to the area, they're not foreigners, though
many of their fighters are). That sounds like a pretty big entitlement
mentality to me.

The power vacuum you talk of only existed because the people in that area
allowed it to exist.

And yes, I do believe that a significant part of the population of their
territory supports their actions. And no, their ruls is not "pseudo-Islamic",
it's Islamic in the truest sense. Go read the Islamic holy books: they're
following them to the letter. They're doing Islam correctly, just like every
fundamentalist does their religion correctly; everyone else just cherry-picks
the parts they like and ignores or whitewashes the really horrible parts.

~~~
kzhahou
At some point, a government will have an insurmountable military advantage,
against which any resistance by its population is futile.

~~~
dragonwriter
> At some point, a government will have an insurmountable military advantage,
> against which any resistance by its population is futile.

Most successful resistance by populations against the government have had the
resisting part of the population overlapping the military. (Conversely, most
popular resistance where this has not been the case has failed.)

So this is, generally, _already_ the case, but in a sense somewhat less
significant than is implied.

I suppose if you have an entirely automated and tamper-proof, self-maintaining
and reproducing, military with the senior government decision makers as the
only humans in the loop the situation becomes a bit different and there
becomes a qualitative difference where popular resistance can no longer spread
to include the military.

------
wahsd
Who cares. It's been known about for decades and predictions of impending
disaster made for a dozen years. At this point I don't care one bit what
happens to anyone. This is totally and utterly foreseeable. Not my problem.
Liquidate your assets and send your donations to Iraq if you want to help;
quit trying to whip up the bleeding hearts to spend other people's money.

------
guard-of-terra
"pressure on the dam’s compromised structure was building up rapidly as winter
snows melted and more water flowed into the reservoir"

Do they really have snow worth to speak of in Iraq?

~~~
jballanc
The Mosul dam is on the Tigris river which originates in the Taurus mountains
of Turkey. We had a fairly regular winter as far as snowfall goes, but the
spring has arrived very early this year.

~~~
burfog
So this is Turkey's fault. They ought to redirect the river into the Black Sea
or directly into the Mediterranean Sea. Other solutions are selling it as
bottled water (with a suitably high price: buy this water or the children
die!) or boiling it off to cool a power plant.

------
jayess
According to the Paul Krugmans and other neo-Keynesians, it would be an
economic boon. Imagine all the destruction that would need to be re-built!

------
chippy
So they were working on fixing this but the west imposed sanctions in the 90s
and stopped work.

"There is no permanent solution except building another dam,” Ansari said. A
second structure, the Badush dam, was started 20km downstream, to prevent a
catastrophe in the event of the Mosul dam’s failure. But work on Badush halted
in the 1990s because of the pressure of sanctions, leaving it only 40%
complete."

~~~
tome
Interesting that you can find a way to blame this on the West when Saddam
could just have complied with the UN (who imposed the sanctions, not the
"West"), had the sactions removed, and given his people a better life.

~~~
acqq
Actually, the US wanted Saddam away just the same like they wanted Assad away.
There was nothing Saddam could do except for allowing the US to take over the
whole country and prosecute (and kill) him.

That's why the info about WMD was faked, both by the US and the UK. The UK was
extreme, doing copy paste of the works of students from the internet. It's an
interesting read.

The UK articles from 2003(!):

[http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/jun/08/media.openup](http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/jun/08/media.openup)

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-159314/No-10-admits-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-159314/No-10-admits-
mistake-Iraq-dossier.html)

"The Government was accused of attempting to mislead Parliament and the
general public after it emerged a dossier of evidence against Saddam Hussein
was largely lifted from a Californian postgraduate student's outdated thesis."

------
mavdi
Something tells me they want to use the risk of a failing dam as a weapon to
pursue Mosul population to rise against ISIS. Or that they just don't care if
1M+ died in an ISIS stronghold.

~~~
venomsnake
I think chances of ISIS themselves blowing it up when pushed away are greater.

Those guys are crazy. Not very competent, but crazy.

~~~
tomjen3
How difficult is it to blow up the dam such that the water rushes out? I mean
bombing a place to kill people is easy, but I have no idea if you have to hit
specific spots on the dam or whether it is enough to just hit any area.

~~~
morty16
The allies (the RAF) had fairly specialized bombs in WWII to blow dams. They
would fly in from upstream and drop a bomb shaped like a barrel (picture a
barrel of oil) from very low altitude. The bomb would skip along the surface
as it lost momentum and then sink close to the dam wall. At a certain pressure
it would blow and take advantage of the hydrostatic shock to break up the
wall.

See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
"Bouncing Bettys"

~~~
arprocter
That's slang for a jumping anti-personnel mine

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Yes, they are also called that. I think the dam-buster bombs had the nickname
first.

------
zazen
The article says the Iraqi government has hired an Italian contractor to
reinforce and maintain the dam. This presumably makes the massive-disaster
scenario described in the Guardian's rather clickbaity headline somewhat less
likely.

Edit: fair enough, it might not be as simple as just hiring some engineers to
fix it; I hadn't considered the location. But still: when the news event that
happened yesterday is that some engineers were hired to fix the dam, I think
it's a bit disingenuous to therefore run a story with a headline saying "dam
on brink of collapse, may kill one million."

~~~
afarrell
The problem is that the Italian contractor refuses to work unless the Italian
army is allowed to send a unit to defend them. Last I'd heard, the Iraqi
government is withholding their approval for this.

~~~
mercurial
Considering the propension of the Iraqi military to run away when faced with
ill-equipped, outnumbered opponents, I can't blame the contractor.

~~~
arethuza
Some Soviet engineers ended up having a particularly nasty end when they were
captured while working on the infamous Kajaki dam in Afghanistan.

