DOHUK, Kurdistan Region – ”To be or not to be,” seems to be an increasingly valid question nowadays about the existence of Iraq’s largest Mosul Dam -- also called a “time bomb” by US army reports in the past decade. And like most existential questions, the answer depends on whom you ask: Iraq’s government has repeatedly denied that the 3.65 kilometer-long dam would run the risk of collapsing, any time soon. Baghdad says the dam functions, as it should, according to the country’s ministry of resources. But commander of US troops in Iraq, Lt. General Sean MacFarland has recently said, “if the dam was in the States, it would probably be shut down.” The dam came into international spotlight in the chaotic days of August 2014 when it was briefly captured by vengeful militants of the ISIS. Many feared the group would blast the dam to further destabilize the country by flooding the capital and several cities along the way. But the fears were not realized as Peshmarga forces heavily supported by US airpower quickly pushed back the militants before they were able to do any harm. If the dam is blasted or collapses for any reason, the result will be calamitous, according to several studies including US army report on January 30: Mosul city, with over a million inhabitants, will be flooded with over 24 meters high waves within just four hours after the collapse. Within the next 42 hours, Baghdad will also be flooded with 5 meters high waves. In fact the core reason behind building the dam in 1981 was not producing electricity alone-- although it generates some 750 megawatts-- but also protecting Baghdad, 450 kilometers southeast of the dam, from potential overflow of the Tigris River. The dam, built by a German-Italian consortium, was constructed on unsteady bedrock of gypsum, which required constant infusion of grout to prevent its collapse. Over the last 30 years the foundation of the dam has continually been grouted six days a week, according to Muhseen Hasan who has worked at the dam for the past 34 years. “There are 380 people working here, in two shifts, to make sure the foundation doesn’t erode,” Hasan told Rudaw and added that the endless grouting costs $30 million a month. Hasan said during the six-week ISIS takeover of the dam in August 2014, it was not maintained which apparently led US and Peshmarga forces to take immediate action and drive out the militants. He said even after the recapture, the grouting did not start immediately as the cement factory was still under ISIS control. In 2015 after repeated warnings from US army in the country, Iraq agreed to take a $200 million loan from the World Bank to address the threat, but the consulted Italian group which was assigned the task has not done much since because of security threats posed by ISIS. Italy has announced it plans to deploy a military unit of 450 men to protect the Trevi Group working on the dam. Whether the group can prevent the giant earth walls from collapsing remains to be seen. For now however skeptics still fear the worst. Professor Nazir Alansari from the Swedish Lulea University, who has studied the Mosul Dam for years, believes the best solution is to construct another dam on Tigris and shut the Mosul Dam “once and for all.” In 1988 the Iraqi government started building a second dam on the Tigris in northwest of Mosul amid growing public concern. The construction of Badosh Dam was abandoned in 1991, although an estimated 40 percent of the work had already been done, as Iraq plunged into the First Gulf War with the subsequent economic sanctions preventing the government to complete the project. “The government should immediately finish the Badosh Dam since as I see it, it is the only way one can guarantee that a catastrophe will not take place,” Alansari said. A report from the US Army Corps of Engineers in 2003 which calls the Mosul Dam “a time bomb”, prepares for the worst: “the flood would kill a half a million people immediately, while the aftershocks, such as power outage and drought, would kill many more.”
