Los Angeles Times | Monday July 07, 2003 |
| The World COLUMN ONE Fixing a Ringing Failure * The man in charge of reviving Iraq’s ravaged phone system applies the resourcefulness he honed at his Internet start-up. |
| Home Edition, Main News, Page A-1 Foreign Desk 41 inches; 1418 words Type of Material: Non dup |
| By Terry McDermott, Times Staff Writer |
| BAGHDAD — Everything is broken. The capital, with its tangles of razor wire, tank traps and the occasional roadside husk of a burned-out Oldsmobile, has a kind of post-apocalyptic, Mad Max quality to it. Trash floats down sidewalks on a dust-dry southern wind, and almost nothing seems to work the way it should. Traffic, the most visible malady in a city of many, has come completely unhinged. There appears to be a lone traffic signal functioning in all of Baghdad, and everyone, accustomed by now to the absence of traffic controls, ignores it; cars go every which way. Four-lane roads might have vehicles going in five different directions. Even freeway entrances and exits have become two-way roads. In this dim picture, there are the rarest rays of optimism. At some of the worst intersections, volunteer traffic directors show up out of nowhere to keep things crawling. Then there’s the scene at a little strip mall on 28th of April Boulevard, just down from Sinak Bridge. The mall itself is a drab, brown, stucco building differentiated from the million or so other drab, brown, stucco buildings in the city only by the massive twin-columned water tower in the middle of its small plaza. There’s a beauty parlor, a wedding planner, the Maruma Coofe Shoop and the Sahraya CD store blasting “choobi” dance music over the plaza, where dozens of people loiter in the shade of the water tower, smoking Viceroys and Marlboro Lights. Every once in a while, the people — like flocks of pigeons readying for flight — flap to attention as a medium-sized middle-aged man comes roaring through, trailed by half a dozen others with notepads and clipboards. Shakir Abdulla, who was trained as an atmospheric physicist, creates his own weather as he rolls by. At rest, Abdulla is an uninspiring sight. He has graying hair, a graying mustache and plain steel-rimmed spectacles. He typically wears gray slacks and subdued, checked shirts, untucked, behind which is a physique that testifies to a desk-bound past. A couple of things do stand out: He is seldom without his worry beads, which he works at warp speed, and he carries a little cell phone the size of a cigarette lighter. Beyond the phone’s elegance, the fact that it actually works — this in a country that two months ago didn’t have a single working cell phone — testifies to his importance. * The Man in Charge Two weeks ago, the Americans who are now running Iraq put Abdulla in charge of Iraq’s entire telecommunications infrastructure — all telephone, Internet and cellular communications. The people in the plaza are his employees. They have jobs, salaries and an eagerness to go to work. What they don’t have at the moment is a place to work. Or even sit. They come to the mall because that’s where Abdulla set up shop when the Telecommunications Ministry building was decommissioned by the war. Its employees have scattered throughout Baghdad. Some are working in a train station, others a technical institute and the few who can squeeze in, here at the mall. Abdulla himself takes meetings all over — sitting at a small table upstairs in the old auditorium of the Iraqi Social Club, standing in a tiny office down the hall, walking through the plaza. Before the war, the government ran all Internet service in the country. Abdulla was in charge of it, and most of the people in the mall plaza are among about 250 people who worked for him before the war. Iraq’s Internet service was a satellite-based system, and its main land station, atop the Telecommunications Ministry, was taken out in the first days of the war. Two backup stations were also damaged. That wasn’t the worst of it. In the prolonged looting spree that followed the war, Abdulla estimates, $10 million worth of his telecommunications gear was lost. “We managed to save some equipment by asking employees to take it home with them,” he said. “Everything that wasn’t secured was stolen.” Abdulla’s people scavenged enough parts from the three wounded land stations to hack together one functioning unit, and last week Internet access was made available again throughout Iraq. They’ve restarted three of the 60-odd prewar Internet cafes. Abdulla has also thrown open the access business, inviting private competitors to use his rebuilt infrastructure. Unfortunately, for most people, Internet access, public or private, depends on the telephone, and the country’s phone system is in even worse shape than the Internet system. For months, no one has seemed able to do anything about it. “There are people who can work like this,” he said, implying that there are many who can’t make small miracles happen without the requisite infrastructure. Because he is one of those who can, Abdulla went from running what was in effect an Internet start-up to trying to start up a whole sector of the government. The Internet company’s prewar income finances its services now. United States authorities are funding the rest of the ministry, largely through Iraqi oil revenue. Almost half of the country’s land-line phones aren’t working, Abdulla said. Most of those that are working are limited to local calls. * Billing System Collapsed Some exchanges can receive international calls, but almost no one can make them because the billing system has collapsed. In Baghdad, the seat of government and the commercial center, people in many neighborhoods can’t even call next door. It’s hard to appreciate the effect the loss of telephone service can have in a more or less modern metropolis. Getting even simple things accomplished can involve an arduous and endless round of cross-town commutes. This adds up to a tremendous waste of time and — even in a country where gasoline costs a mere 40 cents a gallon — money. The Iraqi economy, after a 35-year experiment in rigid state control, needs no help being inefficient. So far, there has been little in the way of actual equipment delivered by the American overseers, Abdulla said. “They are very cooperative, very nice people, but we didn’t get any hard things from them,” he said. Repairing the telephone exchanges and building a new cellular system are, theoretically, not daunting tasks. The bombed-out exchanges can be worked around, and a skeletal wireless system is being installed. “It is not only a technical problem,” Abdulla said. “Technically, it’s not very difficult. The difficulty is to have security. This is the most important issue.” As in much of the country, the level of security fluctuates dramatically. Recently, a telecom employee was shot and killed in downtown Baghdad. “The level of security in this case was zero,” Abdulla said dryly. Physical security of equipment is also critical. Because the Iraqi electrical power grid is in even worse condition than the telephone grid, most phone exchanges are powered by on-site generators. Several have been stolen, Abdulla said. Last week, a pair of telecommunications employees were discovered to be stealing and selling telephone cables at exorbitant rates. They are also accused of tapping into dozens of conversations and blackmailing people with the information they learned. Like many Iraqis, Abdulla cannot understand how the governing U.S.-led occupation authority has allowed things to crumble so utterly. “The coalition has a responsibility to create security. They created the situation that eliminated it,” he said. “They must replace it.” An equal challenge is getting the rest of the bureaucracy up to his speed. “As an Internet company, we have been working very well, but as a ministry….” His voice trails off and his eyebrows lift, admitting a degree of exasperation. He had earlier referred some questions to a deputy director, a man who used to be one of his bosses. He said: “You did not find him, right? Neither can I.” The oddity of the situation is further emphasized by the respective working conditions of Abdulla and his top subordinates. Abdulla, the boss, is here in his strip mall, where anyone could walk up and talk to him. The subordinates work — when they do — in the newly reconstituted, heavily guarded, barbed-wired, watchtowered, sandbagged ministry headquarters, where U.S. Army guards prohibit entry to anyone without a badge. Abdulla is a 35-year civil servant, and he takes the habits of his colleagues in stride. Faced with a severe shortage of space, Abdulla set up a rotation in which the men would come to work two days a week and the women one. Instead, many of the employees come every day and do their work, like Abdulla, standing up. |