VZCZCXRO6974
PP RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHIHL
DE RUEHKUK #0142/01 2340647
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P R 220647Z AUG 06
FM REO KIRKUK
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0715
RUEHGB/AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD PRIORITY 0677
INFO RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE
RUEHKUK/REO KIRKUK 0743

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KIRKUK 000142 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
BAGHDAD FOR POL, POLMIL, NCT, IRMO 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  8/21/2016 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR PINS PNAT PREF PREL KDEM IZ IR
TU 
SUBJECT: (C) KRG PROVIDING WATER TO 450-PLUS VILLAGES IN KIRKUK; POOR 
SECURITY HINDERS WATER RECONSTRUCTION 
 
KIRKUK 00000142  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Jim Bigus, PRT Leader, POL, Department of State. 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
 
 
 
¶1.      (C) INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY:  Kirkuk Provincial Council 
(KPC) Minister of Water, Abdul Qadir, told IPAO on July 31 the 
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has been supplying well 
water to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), mostly Kurds, in 
more than 450 villages on the periphery of Kirkuk city and its 
vicinity.  He said that deteriorating security in Kirkuk had 
limited water reconstruction to assisting the city's residents 
alone and that the KPC currently was not considering proposals 
for the broader Kirkuk Province.  Due to the security situation, 
reconstruction had concentrated on three large projects designed 
to have the maximum impact for the city (Ref. para. 10-12). 
Water degraded severely before reaching the consumer due to poor 
water pressure, cracked pipes, and unauthorized tapping.  The 
Water Ministry expected to finish the three large projects by 
the end of 2007, and estimated these would meet population 
demand for the city through 2013.  KRG support for IDP 
settlements could be part of a move to make these permanent, 
possibly in preparation for re-drawing the municipal boundaries 
prior to the referendum on Kirkuk's final status.  END 
INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY. 
 
(C) KRG PROVIDING WATER TO 450-PLUS VILLAGES 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (C) KPC Minister of Water, Abdul Muhammad Qadir, told IPAO on 
July 31 that only 7 of the more than 450 villages surrounding 
Kirkuk city received water from the main K-1 water treatment 
pipe into the city.  He claimed the KRG was providing water 
services to the IDP settlements and many of the remaining 
villages surrounding Kirkuk city by drilling artesian wells in 
areas that did not connect to the city's water network.  Qadir 
said the KDP and PUK were actively encouraging NGOs to build 
water projects and that many of these were located in areas with 
large IDP settlements, such as Rahamiyah and Failaq.  Qadir 
claimed this was good since the construction of new settlements 
in these areas would not have an impact on water consumption in 
the city itself. 
 
(C) POOR SECURITY HINDERS WATER RECONSTRUCTION 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
¶3.  (C) Qadir said poor security remained the primary obstacle 
to resolving Kirkuk's water problems.  He said terrorists 
recently attacked the K-1 water network into Kirkuk city and 
suggested clearly labeling the new pipes "water" would help, 
since the captured suspects confessed they thought they had 
bombed oil pipelines.  Qadir said the terrorists chose to attack 
the K-1 pipeline for its remote location, its association with 
Coalition or Coalition-funded contractors, and out of concern 
that tribal shaykhs would react negatively to any attacks on 
local water reconstruction efforts in the Hewija and Zab 
sub-districts of Kirkuk Province.  Qadir claimed Coalition 
efforts to secure water projects in the southern village of Tel 
Dhahab, in Zab, were due to its reputation as a center for 
terrorism, and added that terrorists had used isolated, remote 
water buildings through 2005 as strongholds to orchestrate 
attacks but that this threat had been eliminated.  He said that 
fighting between Arabs and Turkoman had halted reconstruction 
efforts in the Taza sub-district of Daquq, in southeast Kirkuk 
Province, because Turkoman workers were not being allowed access 
to the site. 
 
(C) WATER DEGRADATION WIDE-SPREAD, SERVICE IS NOT 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶4.  (C) Qadir said water arriving from K-1 to the pumping 
stations on the city's outskirts was potable, but suffered 
degradation as it moved south due to cracked pipes, poor water 
pressure, power outages, and unsupervised tapping.  Qadir said 
according to Water Ministry estimates, about 40 percent of 
Kirkuk city residents were without water, and those who had 
water received service for only two or three hours, usually 
every other day.  Residents typically ran their water 
continuously in these hours of service, he said, to fill rooftop 
storage tanks that provided families with water during shut-off 
times. 
 
(C) FURTHER DEGRADATION TO SOUTHERN ARAB QUARTERS 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶9.   (C) The former regime built K-1 prior to settlement of the 
southern, mostly Arab areas of Kirkuk, according to Qadir, and 
this system was only intended to send water to the city zones 
north of these areas.  The pipes connecting the northern zones 
 
KIRKUK 00000142  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
to the pump stations on the city's outskirts were in need of 
repair, Qadir said, and already degraded the water before it 
reached consumers in the northern and central parts of the city. 
 The water suffered further degradation as it moved south, he 
said, because the southern areas were using small, temporary 
pipes to tap into the main water pipes of the other city zones 
to meet local demand.  The Water Ministry authorized some taps, 
he said, but "too many" pipes were connected on the instruction 
and approval of local community leaders with no oversight from 
the Water Ministry.  Qadir said these levels of water 
degradation had given rise to the prevailing sentiment that the 
Kurds living in the northern parts of the city were deliberately 
siphoning off the potable water for themselves before it reached 
the Arabs in the southern quarters. 
 
(SBU) NOTES ON THE THREE MAIN WATER RECONSTRUCTION PROJECTS 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
 
¶10.     (SBU) K-1 water treatment project (MRGS Coordinates ME 
3642-2856):  located northwest of the city of Kirkuk. 
Originally build under Saddam's regime, it was refurbished 
between February, 2004, and September, 2005, with 4.1 million 
USD from USAID and is currently managed mostly by Coalition and 
contractor workers.  (Note:  all MRGS Coordinates are from the 
38S Map Series.  End note.) 
 
¶11.     (SBU) Dibis water station:  an intermediate pump station 
currently under construction at a cost of approximately 9 
million USD and with an estimated pump capacity of 28 million 
gallons per day, helping the northern villages between Dibis and 
Kirkuk.  Qadir said the Dibis pump station would solve shortages 
throughout Kirkuk city, which currently operated with several 
decentralized pumps operating at about 50 percent capacity. 
 
¶12.     (SBU) GST-5 Project (MRGS Coordinates ME 2350-5830): 
currently under construction designed to pump water to the 
southern, Arab quarters of the city.  A proposed landfill (MRGS 
ME 4288-0686) is expected to help alleviate the city's sewage 
and drainage problems. 
 
(C) BIOGRAPHHIC NOTES 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶13.     (C) Abdul Qadir Muhammad Amin:  Sunni Kurd; born in 
Kirkuk; politically independent but has affiliations with the 
Kurdistan Democratic Party; reportedly had strong and ongoing 
relations with the Coalition Forces and local NGOs, especially 
their engineering departments; received a Bachelor's of Science 
Degree in Civil Engineering from Sulaymaniyah University; has 
worked for the Water Department since 1986. 
 
(U) COMMENT 
----------- 
 
¶14.     (C) In a separate meeting, the director of a local NGO who 
has been working on water reconstruction in the Kirkuk area 
since 2003 corroborated Qadir's claims regarding past and 
current water project statistics and estimates, as well as 
security obstacles to water reconstruction and evident KRG 
support to IDP settlements and northern villages.  It was noted 
further that the KRG, specifically the PUK, had not limited its 
assistance to providing well water, but had made more permanent 
contributions to the IDP settlements, such as building roads and 
sewers.   The KRG contributions could be part of a larger plan 
to re-draw the city's municipal boundaries to include the new 
Kurdish settlements prior to the referendum on Kirkuk's final 
status.  Qadir's statements correlate with other KPC directors, 
who claim poor security is forcing them to focus on northern, 
Kurdish areas by default. 
JBIGUS