The US appears to have clearly underestimated how mammoth the task of rebuilding Iraq would be. In part, this may be due to an underestimation of the effect of years of economic sanctions on such basic services as power and water.[underlining mine]

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Who's fault is that? I have to ask!

From Tom's Fox article:

HITCHENS: Good question, because until not long ago, that was more or less universally the case in Mosul. And, of course, further up in Iraq, in northern Iraq, Kurdistan (search) itself, most of the towns now look like southern California. It's incredible the difference it's made for them to have been 12 years free of Saddam Hussein. They are 12 years into national building. It gives you an idea of what it might be like. In Mosul, it was funny. They had got the lights more or less back on and they were reconnected to the grid to help out Baghdad, which is short of electricity. The Iraqi grid is very badly messed up, as you know. Then they had to lose a little bit of power to help Baghdad get power back. But that's the way Saddam used to punish people. He would turn off the lights on cities that didn't like him.

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Apparently, they have begun to help each other out. Thailand's (Thailand is also offering cash - 2B -my post on that is probably about three pages ago by now) electrical engineers/humanitarian aid (maybe even Japan's) should be arriving in Baghdad soon.