Holbrooke and a Dam too Far
High in the Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, a 55 year-old dam holds immense potential for the stability and development of Afghanistan’s second largest city. If only the Taliban would let the concrete delivery arrive.
Kajakai Dam
Built in 1953 by Morrison-Knudsen, the same American company that contributed to building the Hoover Dam, the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge, and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, the Kajaki Dam suffers from decades of neglected maintenance and inefficient hydroelectric turbines. According to reporting by Rajiv Chandrasekaran in the Washington Post, “the dam produces about 33 megawatts of electricity with two rehabilitated turbines, of which only about 30 percent of the power reaches Kandahar. Along the route, as much as 40 percent of the electricity is lost to theft and transmission inefficiencies.
As a consequence, Kandahar residents fortunate enough to have their homes and shops connected to the city’s rickety network of electricity wires typically receive about six hours of power a day. But there are days and nights without a flicker of light, the whir of a fan, the distraction of television. Frequent blackouts have shut down factories and kept people locked indoors after sunset.”
On Wednesday, the Obama administration’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke said the electric supply to Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold, is currently a central goal of the US’s strategy to win the war. He told PBS’s Gwenn Ifill that General David Petraeus, the new US commander in charge of the multi-national force in Afghanistan, raised this issue with him on a conference call last Saturday.
As much as 40% of the electricity is lost to theft and transmission inefficiencies.
However, the means and methods by which to provide this electricity differ greatly amongst the various departments and policy circles working on Afghanistan’s problems. Military leaders, eager to meet the draw down deadline next summer favor a short-term solution to purchase three huge diesel generators and thousands of gallons of fuel. US Embassy and State Department officials however, favor a more comprehensive plan to upgrade the Dam’s generators and finish installing a third turbine to boost long-term production. In 2008, an operation involving 5,000 British troops, attempted to deliver and install the third turbine to the Dam, but the Taliban fought furiously along the roads leading up the mountainside, making it impossible for trucks to haul cement in to install it. (You can read an excellent account of that mission by Lieutenant-Col Rufus McNeil here)
Herein lies the conundrum, restoring consistent power to Kandahar, a city of 450,000 is a necessary task, but the most effective and cost-efficient means of doing so is blocked by the Taliban. The Afghan government will never be able to afford the diesel fuel for the power generators after the American forces leave, once again plunging the city into darkness if the military’s short-term fix is implemented. That long term perspective however, seems rather wishful when one considers recently ousted US General Stanley McChrystal’s point, who was quoted by the Economist last week telling his staff: “While I think Kajaki is critical for a long-term solution, there ain’t no long-term if we don’t win short-term.”
A decision on the city’s electricity and the Dam’s future should come soon as General Petraeus is highly likely to receive full Senate confirmation on his new appointment today and depart for the region by the weekend. To fix a dam or not to fix a dam, that is the question.
