Baghdad Electricity

I heard a lot of news reports whining about how Baghdad has less power now than when the US invaded. The usual report has been how the US has failed.

This article is a bit better. It at least points out:

Meanwhile, more and more Iraqis are buying refrigerators, air-conditioning systems and televisions, forcing demand even higher and putting the creaking system under ever greater strain.

McCoy said Iraq now needs 7,200 megawatts of generating capacity to meet its needs, up from 4,800 megawatts at the time of the U.S. invasion in 2003.

"We can put almost 7,100 megawatts on line in the country today," he told reporters.

"The problem is that at any one time, 2,800 megawatts of that is off-line for maintenance, and that's largely because of terrorist attacks."

How is this a failure? You have a country getting substantially more electricity, so much so that they are buying large power-use equipment. Looks to me that more Iraqis overall are benefitting from the change, even if Baghdad is suffering from equitable supply.