Iraq's Mosul Dam Could Burst At Any Time (blastingnews.com) 198
MarkWhittington writes: The Mosul Dam, located near the city of Mosul in Northern Iraq, was started by Saddam Hussein in 1981 as a way to bolster his regime and provide power to the surrounding area. It was completed in 1986 and has since generated 3,420 gigawatt/hours per year. Unfortunately, the dam was built on an unstable foundation of gypsum and thus needs constant repairs to plug leaks and maintain its structural integrity. Even more unfortunately, such repair efforts have stopped since the Islamic State seized control of Mosul. The dam could burst at any time, as a consequence. The flood could kill a million people and render a million more homeless. Radio Free Europe reports that Italy's Trevi Group has been contracted to repair and maintain the dam, but it seems like there's a lot to catch up with. (Also at The Guardian and Mother Jones.)
Wrong units? (Score:4, Informative)
Shouldn't that be "3,420 gigawatt*hour per year", or "3,420 gigawatt*hour/yr"?
Shachar
Re:Wrong units? (Score:5, Informative)
Or, to make things simpler, just "390 megawatts"?
Shachar
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You don't just walk into a store.. and buy Plutonium.
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Your first comment was correct, it is gigawatt hours.
But you cannot "make things simpler" by writing the result in Watts only as it implies a constant load of 390 MW, not an annual energy generation of 3,420 GWh generated per year.
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390MW average load. ;)
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Buddy take a more relaxed view on life.
Fact is that everything sort of gets harder to get your head around. Making sense of the wonderful but complex applications built on top of many simple concepts is tough when you don't know the basics. And not everyone is interested in taking life as a way to pursue absolute truth, no matter how limited the brain is in doing so.
Back in the days I was happy to naturally understand formulas like E = P * t, P = I * V and V = I * R. Most people around me just couldn't
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Or, to make things simpler, just "390 megawatts"?
Shachar
Or, to make things even simpler, ignore the actual power generation figure and focus on the main point of the article: THE DAM IS ABOUT TO FAIL AND KILL A LOT OF PEOPLE!
Re:Wrong units? (Score:5, Insightful)
"News for nerds, where submitters are too stupid to get important units right"
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And the editors' job isn't to correct them.
Sounds like a dam big problem (Score:4, Funny)
Come hell or high water, this should be dealt with pretty dam fast.
I'll go to hell for this. (Score:1)
Civilians aside, it seems poetic that ISIS will literally be washed from the lands by their own stupidity.
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But think about all the children!
As long as Mosul is in ISIS control, they are ISIS responsibility. We have enough of our own problems
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Re:I'll go to hell for this. (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect he isn't shooting bound and prostate prisoners in the back of the head.
As is the case for most of these people. I don't particularly want to stand trial for abuses conducted on my behalf by my government or representatives thereof. Do you? If not, why would you condemn people who have even less choice of whom represents them to die for the abuses of those people who happen to control the land they live on?
Min
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bound and prostate
Prostrate != Prostate. Unless you're imagining something a lot more unusual than I am.
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Ah, my favorite (and only line that I remember) from Waiting for Godot...
"Hmm... It'd give us an erection."
Re:I'll go to hell for this. (Score:5, Informative)
Most of the people killed will not be members of Daesh. While the floodwaters will certainly first hit Mosul, for the most part they'll be heading AWAY from Daesh-controlled territories - and towards Baghdad.
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Most of the people killed will not be members of Daesh.
They don't need to be - a million or more people getting killed because of them will cause their support to dwindle. ISIS is not some backwater, unsupported rogue islamic group - they have support to varying degrees from the majority of muslims wordwide (yes, more than 50%).
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People might blame the Iraq government though, since they are under control now
I expect it's more likely they'll find a way to blame the West in general and the US in particular.
It won't make any sense, but lots of people will believe it anyway.
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Gypsum? (Score:2)
The dam was built on what's effectively ... drywall? How do you fix something like that?
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Yes, and gypsum dissolves in water, so a very complex place to build a dam geologically. Basically they constantly pump a mix of cement, sand, rocks and probably other things in the foundation to replace the dissolved gypsum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grout
If that is not being done any longer collapse is indeed not far away.
Re:Gypsum? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like a badly run nuclear plant which is a minor accident away from meltdown. Except that it could kill a lot more people than a major meltdown could.
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The dam was built on what's effectively ... drywall? How do you fix something like that?
You gather as much joint compound and tape as you can possibly find.
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Cry me a river (Score:5, Funny)
The people repairing this (Score:1)
Must have balls of steel.
I wouldn't go into Iraq to repair a dam no matter how much you paid me.
The chances of getting captured by ISIS make it not worth it at all.
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Must have balls of steel.
I wouldn't go into Iraq to repair a dam no matter how much you paid me.
The chances of getting captured by ISIS make it not worth it at all.
Not all ISIS members capture people. It's 2016. Stop with the racism already. You might hurt their feelings.
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Then drain it! (Score:3)
If its so dangerous just drain the darn thing. I don't care how neglected it is there has to be some way to open up the valves and drain the reservoir even if it involves shape charges or blow torches. If push came to shove simply disconnect the generators and open up their channels all the way, it would take a long time but the reservoir would eventually drain.
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The article indicates the bottom outlets are jammed, so it may not be possible without extensive repairs first.
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there has to be some way
I just hope Mosul realized this in time! It sounds so simple, how could they have let it come to this? While we're at it, we should fix congress by electing better people. And to reduce unemployment and poverty we'll just put everyone to work!
Sorry, I'm guessing you didn't read about all the problems the dam has but I can never resist these "its so easy!" posts. If you're aware of all the issues and still think 30sec of keyboard quarterbacking can fix everything then I'm pretty sure I know who your candidat
How is Trevi going to do it? Who for? (Score:2)
We can only hope. (Score:2)
Allahu Akbar!
Let it burst (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure the large loss of life will be tragic, but perhaps this will wake the local people up to the threat of the Islamic State and give them reason to finally arm up and wipe those fuckers out.
That's right Muslims, when that damn breaks, IS will now be responsible for MILLIONS of your own religious brethren dying.
So when are you going to stand up and wipe out the extremists? Why are you needing to wait for millions of your own people to die before you come to that startling realization?
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Sure the large loss of life will be tragic, but perhaps this will wake the local people up to the threat of the Islamic State and give them reason to finally arm up and wipe those fuckers out.
That's right Muslims, when that damn breaks, IS will now be responsible for MILLIONS of your own religious brethren dying.
So when are you going to stand up and wipe out the extremists? Why are you needing to wait for millions of your own people to die before you come to that startling realization?
Anyone want to place bets on ISIS giving up control of just the dam on purpose because they knew it was about to fail? So they could use the tragedy to their advantage since "someone else was responsible?"
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The more desperate people are, the more destroyed their cities are, the more atrocities happen, the more they're going to support extremists. Wouldn't you? Islamic State was the only group brutal enough to take firm control of the anarchy and provide actual services to the people. There's a reason why brutal terrorist regimes gain their footholds in places of anarchy like Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Iraq and Syria -- brutality becomes a way of life, only the most brutal can brutal can bring things under co
Been there, not likely (Score:2)
Re:could? (Score:5, Informative)
Why haven't they blown it already?
Who is "they" and why would "they" do that?
This story smells bad.
We have a 2006 study [bbc.co.uk] by the US Army Corps of Engineers which says the same thing. And the problems apparently go back to its very construction in 1984.
In September 2006, the US Army Corps of Engineers determined that the dam, 45 miles upstream of Mosul on the River Tigris, presented an unacceptable risk.
"In terms of internal erosion potential of the foundation, Mosul Dam is the most dangerous dam in the world," the corps warned, according to the SIGIR report. "If a small problem [at] Mosul Dam occurs, failure is likely."
Re: could? (Score:5, Funny)
Because we aren't barbarians who would kill a million innocent civilians for a pr win
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Yes, I do. If we weren't, we'd just drop enough nukes to make the sands glow and be done with it. We'll accept some collateral damage, but nowhere near that amount.
Re: could? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your post made me so mad I'm going to go out and shoot someone. You murdered them by making this post.
Oh wait, that makes no moral or logical sense. You're absolutely right- just like yours doesn't.
Don't get me wrong, I thought the Iraq war was stupid then. But that doesn't make us responsible for something another group chooses to do afterwards.
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So, yes, starting wars irresponsibly makes those in charge and in support of it makes them
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Actually, irresponsibly starting a war with absolutely no plan on what to do DOES make those who chose the war path responsible. If you were against the Iraq War, then no I wouldn't consider you responsible. But there is no question that the people who did support or start the war without any clear plan ARE responsible. And it wasn't like there were no warnings that starting a war there would destabilize the region.
So, yes, starting wars irresponsibly makes those in charge and in support of it makes them responsible as well. This does not mean I'm arguing ISIS is not at fault. They are also at fault, moreso than the warmongers. It is possible for more than one party to be at fault.
Soooo, are you holding Obama responsible for Libya turning into an ISIS controlled failed state too?
Or did you buy Obama's risible claim that fighting a war to topple Gaddafi "wasn't hostilities"?
Better yet, are you also holding Obama responsible for the rise of ISIS in Iraq because Obama IRRESPONSIBLY withdrew US troops before the region was stable?
My guess is you're not. After eight years, you really believe it's STILL all on BOOOOOOOSH!!!!!!
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If you want to do that then the blame lies rather squarely on the colonization and subsequent division or property perpetuated by the League of Nations. Then again, to be frank, much of the circumstances are due to that. However, the blame lies squarely with the people chopping off heads.
You can try to blame the US if you want but that's only looking at a very small piece of history and kind of silly. It's a bit like the AGW deniers selectively cherry-picking years and data-sets to say that no warming occur
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Re: could? (Score:5, Informative)
What you said didn't make much sense. Regardless if the war was irresponsible to start or not?, ISIS didn't have the control in Iraq until after Obama pulled the troops out. And to that point, it still doesn't make much sense because ISIS grew out of Syria's civil war that we largely sat on our hands about verbally bashing Assad saying he had to go while encouraging the rebellion.
You can say ISIS is in Iraq because we left to soon, but you cannot legitimately claim that ISIS is a product of entering the war.
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ISIS and al qeada are competitors. There is no evolution there other than members of one are now in the other.
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Tell me how that dam was ever profitable in the first place. That's a lot of energy going into rebuilding the dam; does it really generate more than it takes to constantly repair its own structural erosion?
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ISIS grew out of Al Qaeda which wasn't in Iraq until the war. ISIS didn't just magically appear in Syria.
Not from the sources I have read. ISIL* grew out of Egyptian radicalism which states that anybody who does not agree with them is not muslim and may/should be killed. Al Qaeda grew out of Bin Laden's idea of jihad but only really came into being when alligned with similar Egyptian radicals to give them the backing and people it needed to grow their network. Al Qaeda is specifically an anti-USA organization. ISIL is specifically an anti-shiite organization looking to create a race/religious war to not just m
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Mmm, yes?, Obama is responsible for attacking Libya?
And also Syria for that matter. I don't see why can't both Obama and Bush be the bad guy.
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Syria?
Actually the origin was Jordan and moved to Iraq after the founder was injured in Afghanistan and got treatment in Iraq.
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How are you not responsible for removing the existing govt, (based on lies about WMD) that kept a lid on that hell hole, creating the circumstances that lead to this situation?
You broke it, you bought it seems to apply.
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Assad is still in power. Err did you think ISIS started in Iraq? Even then, they didn't hold ground in Iraq until we left. So I'm not sure what removing a government had anything to do with it other than leaving before the replacement government would function better.
Let me ask you something. Suppose a kid grows up to rob banks and kills someone in the process. Do you blame his parents? Do you blame his grandparents?
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If we can show that the parents did influence, whether by action or knowing neglect, the kid's development into a bank robber, then YES I would also apportion blame to the parents as well. This is not a difficult question. Just because their may not be legal responsibility doesn'
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You need to cite that. Everything I can find says ISIS grew out of Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad which started in 1999 and was only allied with al qeada.
The rest of your reply is about as silly. A grown person makes their own decisions.
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And so what? The grown person makes their own decisions. But the parents ALSO made their own decision to have a kid and raise it to choose the wrong choices. There is no magical decree that responsibility can only lie with one party. That would be silly.
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I'll answer the first part in the other reply. And so what? The grown person makes their own decisions. But the parents ALSO made their own decision to have a kid and raise it to choose the wrong choices. There is no magical decree that responsibility can only lie with one party. That would be silly.
What about the parents of the parents who raised their children to raise children who grow up to commit heinous crimes? How far back are you going to take it. The sins of the man fall at his own feet, not his fathers.
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In the case of ISIS, we KNOW how that began so it's not a even hypothetical question.
Furthermore, maybe if people were willing to trace the origins of these kinds of things, then we wouldn't be in these messes and making the same mistakes.
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You are (approximately) correct in your first paragraph. Without the invasion those guys would have been spinning their wheels trying to not get killed or imprisoned by Saddam. As it was, after the invasion and dissolution of the Iraqi army, their ranks (and the ranks of every single militia in Iraq) swelled with well-trained, desperate professional soldiers. The turmoil that caused and the following inter-clan/inter-faith/inter-community struggles led directly to the instantiation of ISIS as we know the
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I already answered that question before. In the case of ISIS, we KNOW how that began so it's not a even hypothetical question. Furthermore, maybe if people were willing to trace the origins of these kinds of things, then we wouldn't be in these messes and making the same mistakes.
You might as well blame it on cavemen.
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But the Iraq war led directly to the "other group" being created.
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I would say the opposite. Regardless of who actually does it, America will be blamed. Also, if America were actually caught killing a million civilians, there would be severe repercussions all around.
In the long history of bad decisions by the CIA, I think that would be in the top 3, if not the worst.
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There have been US military plans for a US junta as well as CIA plans for mind control, never mind the ill-informed proxy wars.
Killing a million is not a big deal for the CIA. Look at Central America in the 80s. Guatemala alone was a fifth of that and they just had bananas.
What are the repercussions? A drug war blamed on the dirty immigrants.
Don't be naive. There are extremely evil (or perhaps extremely stupid) people in the CIA. Blowing a dam and killing a million "sand niggers" is well within their idea o
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Re: could? (Score:5, Informative)
According to the article I read yesterday, equipment was looted and the teams of 300 people who worked round the clock are now about 30.
The loss of equipment means that the voids that are eroded in the "rock" below the dam can no longer be filled with grout.
Also, one of the two sluice gates is jammed and because they need to be used as a pair (to avoid erosion) the water level cannot be reduced as the spring melt starts.
Finally, while the dam isn't under ISIS control, Mosul and post of the surrounding area is, so it probably exacerbates the problems.
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It's remarkably difficult to hire skilled workers to move to a strategic location in a civil war which has already previously been taken by a group known for beheading or enslaving their captives, and could be retaken by them at any time.
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Errrr....because the CIA doesn't want to be responsible for a million dead Iraqis? Aside from the obvious moral issues, the legal ones would be awful if anyone found out...and it would come out sooner or later. It would be considered a war crime.
While the CIA is not part of the Defense Department, when asked by some Senate committee members if the U.S. would carpet bomb Daesh, General Paul Selva (Air Force) said, "The U.S. military will never carpet bomb." This is why Hayden said recently that were a Presid
Responsible for deaths (Score:2)
Errrr....because the CIA doesn't want to be responsible for a million dead Iraqis?
They are already demonstrably responsible for 500,000 [wikipedia.org] due to the pointless war they helped cause. Not sure why they would suddenly care now.
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They are already demonstrably responsible for 500,000
Because the CIA is responsible for everyone including a variety of enemies and independents who don't consult with the CIA before they kill someone. And that particular death estimate overstates actual deaths by a factor of four or five.
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Why haven't they blown it already?
Actually, a good question. It seemed like the Islamic State was very passionate about destroying anything non-Muslim . . . ancient temples, statues, works of art, etc. A dam should have been on their short list of non-Muslim stuff, so the Islamic State creeps should have blown it up a long time ago.
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A dam does not meet any of those criteria. They may have no motivation to maintain it, and saw the maintenance equipment as stuff to loot, but there is no reas
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A dam is not a symbol of another religion, why would they destroy it?
A natural spring squirts out some water in the mountains. This is Allah's will. As it runs down the mountain, it turns into a bigger river. and eventually runs into the ocean. This is also Allah's will.
If you build a dam to stop the water from flowing, you are countering Allah's will. So, thus, dams are anti-Islamic.
Q.E.D.
Re:a- a- (Score:5, Informative)
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Not so much cynical as ignorant, given that Isis isn't Shiite. If you're going to suggest what people should consider it would help if you gave the impression you had considered it at least a little yourself first.
Re:a- a- (Score:4, Informative)
They need baptism (Score:2)
more like (Score:2)
shrug and cynically say, "inshallah".
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Step 2: Islamic State relocates their power-base to this unchallenged area
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit
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The dam is upstream of Mosul. Which is why Mosul (and Baghdad, and a number of other cities) is under threat if this dam breaches and the water flows downstream.
Re:and? (Score:4, Insightful)
I do.
I can fully understand why you prefer to hide in anonymity, expressing this kind of views. Organisations like Daesh thrive on fools like you; people who are all too willing to abandon their humanity, for whatever reason. Here's a little quote from Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago" - it seems to fit the description of both you and Daesh so well:
"Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble â" and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb, too. The imagination and spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology. Ideology â" that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes.... That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations.... Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago."
â"âAleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Chapter 4, p. 173
Re:and? (Score:5, Funny)
Great posting sabotaged by Slashdot's 1990's level unicode support.
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Good! That'll save tax dollars!
And that is all that matters to somebody from America, God's own country, where every public figure has to pretend they are devout Christians, is it? People like you are a disgrace. You may claim that American lives matter more to you than those of other nations, but I don't even think you mean that either - you are just a selfish little prick. Fortunately, as I know from experience, most Americans are decent people, whether they believe in God, gods or nothing.
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Incorrect choice of facts. When the flood hits Baghdad (and points between Mosul and Baghdad where there are Americans), casualties are likely. I'd guess several dozen, given the number of bridge guards etc, and people's propensity to underestimate the time they need to get away through a crowd of other people trying to get away.
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Dams are clean energy producers and have to be way safer than that evil nuclear stuff. The estimates must be off by a few orders of magnitude. Nothing else makes sense.
Perhaps it means the things we engineer can fail and that when they do they have consequences.
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The US regime fell 8 years ago and was replaced with a new constitution? I didn't know that.
Nation-building is NOT our job (Score:2)
I'm no fan of Obama, but I agree w/ him on this one. Also, I disagree w/ the Bush doctrine. It was okay to invade Iraq to verify the WMDs, which they then verified were not there, but beyond that, all that nation-building - toppling Saddam, holding elections, forcing Shias, Sunnis & Kurds to work together in a unity government, spending billions on reconstructing that country - none of that should have been done. When Bush stood on the USS Missouri w/ that 'Mission Accomplished' banner, he happened
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If you're looking for a gigacasualty hazard, you really need to look to pandemic flu.