BAGHDAD, Iraq - "Electricity output has dipped to its lowest point in three years in Iraq, where the desert sun is rising toward another broiling summer and U.S. engineers are winding down their rebuilding of the crippled power grid.

"The Iraqis, in fact, may have to turn to neighboring Iran to help bail them out of their energy crisis — if not this summer, then in years to come."

"Despite such hardships, Army Corps of Engineers officers regard their Restore Iraq Electricity project as one of the great feats in corps history, along with the building of the Panama Canal a century ago.

"Their efforts and related programs, at a three-year cost of more than $4 billion and tens of thousands of man-hours, built or rehabilitated electric-generating capacity totaling just over 2,000 megawatts — equaling the output of America’s Hoover Dam.

“It’s not a disappointment, not in my opinion. We’ve added megawatts to the grid,” said Kathye Johnson, reconstruction chief for the joint U.S. military-civilian project office in Baghdad."

Arf