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Hot enough for you?

Update

Steve e-mailed from his home office to ask me to thank Reggie Avraham for sending this Bush Lies Marathon related link. Reg's site, TVNewsLies.org is most definitely worth a visit, and their Bush coverage is certainly not bush-league stuff.

Mr. Perry will return, but in the meantime he's slaving away on his Bush Lies story for an upcoming, yet to be determined issue of City Pages. From what I've seen of the project so far, spotting the lies is easy, documenting them is the hard part.

Wait until August

Years ago I was on a painting crew that got a home weatherization project from the City of Des Moines. One of the routine jobs involved putting tar paper around the severely cracked foundation of an older home. It was 108° F. that day, and the normally rigid tar paper was flopping around like a sheet of paper. We took hourly breaks and were drinking quarts of pop like they were half full Dixie cups. 108° is damn hot. It's 109° again today in Baghdad, so I went looking for some news about Iraqi summer heat.

Even when there's air conditioning, the effect is relative. When it's 130 degrees F. outside, a room can be cooled to about 90 degrees at best. But air conditioning requires electricity. Journalists, royalty, and other "elites" get most of their power from local generators, but even those can be unreliable. "In the middle of our interview, the power kicked out and the room went pitch black. Within 30 seconds, the temperature in the room seemed to jump 30 degrees in the absence of air conditioning.

Ilene Prusher, The Christian Science Monitor

In American military parlance it is called Heat Condition 5. The term refers to weather so hot that soldiers are advised to drink at least a litre of water an hour to survive. In Iraq just now, it could equally describe a seemingly inexorable rise in tempers, not summer temperatures.

Hot tempers in a hot land, The Economist

The situation in Iraq is one of devastation. The liberation from Saddam is fading in peoples' minds. Occupation by the US and Britain is the new reality. It is only a matter of weeks before really hot weather arrives, and this will only add to the chaos. As the tension worsens, it will become even more difficult for any political accommodation to take place and to hold....

"Iraqis feel that there future is being imposed on them by foreigners. This is the last phase of the honeymoon. There is widespread gratitude to the Americans for toppling the regime, but as the summer sets in, tempers will rise, along with the temperature.''

It is a dangerous situation.

Mo Mowlam, The Independent

"Saddam was not a just man, but he provided for us," said Laith Yahia, a street vendor. "There was nothing like this in his time; there was no looting, and there was electricity."

Without back-up generators, thousands of families are sweltering in 120 degree-plus weather when the electricity goes out, as it does for 20 hours a day in some neighborhoods. Children get sick from drinking the water: The United Nations Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq last week reported that cases of diarrhea have tripled in Baghdad.

There's no working phone system, only expensive satellite phones. The night is full of gunfire. The local police force, propped up by the U.S. military, hasn't shed its Saddam-era reputation for corruption.

Tom Lasseter, Dana Hull and Natalie Pompilio, The Mercury News

To hear Iraqis tell it, June is mild. "This is nothing," they repeat, sometimes laughing. "Wait until July. Wait until August." In those months, the mercury challenges the 130-degree mark.

For US soldiers patrolling Baghdad, there's no escaping the heat. There is no air conditioning. No swimming pools. Cooling off means a seat in the shade with a baby wipe to cut the grime. Sleeping is a fitful affair, with men stripped to their shorts, spread-eagled on cots.

"I pity them," said 73-year-old Hajj Talib Taha, as a pair of rumbling Humvees sat stuck in traffic on teeming al-Rashid street.

Others said the Americans should have considered the heat before invading the kitchen.

Jim Krane, OC Register

For me, the most chilling passage (so to speak) was Mo Mowlam reminding us that "It is only a matter of weeks before really hot weather arrives." [emphasis mine] Maybe our troops can handle it. Lots of them are from the South and more used to hot weather than some of us, but last I heard it rarely gets to 109° F. anywhere in the US besides Death Valley, and 130° F. is just insane. This is going to be a very long, very hot summer. How do you say My Lai in Arabic?

While looking for weather-related information on Iraq, I also came across this Florida Today feature on Hank Brandli, a retired Air Force colonel. Back in early June he was studying satellite photos and came to the conclusion that we're pumping Iraqi oil to Kuwaiti refineries. He makes a good case, but I'm sure he's wrong. They told us this war wasn't about oil, and everyone knows this administration doesn't lie.

— posted by Mark Gisleson

Posted by Steve Perry at June 27, 2003 8:09 AM

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