Sunni militants advance toward large Iraqi dam

www.nytimes.com | Middle East
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and ROD NORDLANDJUNE 25, 2014

The Haditha Dam in 2006, when it was protected by American Marines. CreditJim Wilson/The New York Times

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security officials said Wednesday that fighters with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria were advancing on the Haditha Dam, the second-largest in Iraq, raising the possibility of catastrophic damage and flooding.

This would not be the first time that dams have figured in the conflict. In April, when ISIS fighters seized the Falluja Dam, they opened it, flooding crops all the way south to the city of Najaf. The water at one point washed east as well, almost reaching Abu Ghraib, close to Baghdad.

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The threat of "catastrophic damage and flooding" figures greatly in Jeremiah's prophecy of doom on the land of Babylon, representing the eighth judgment, the most destructive of all nine: "The sea (or broad river) has come up over Babylon; she has been engulfed with its tumultuous waves," Jer 51:42.

Following the catastrophic flood, "(God) shall dry up her sea (or broad river) and make her fountain dry, and Babylon will become a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals, an object of horror and hissing, without inhabitants," Jer 51:36-37.

The drought seems to be a consequence of the flood, and the flood and drought result in Babylon's "perpetual desolation," Jer 51:62.

"Thou, O LORD, hast promised concerning this place to cut it off, so that there will be nothing dwelling in it, whether man or beast, but it will be a perpetual desolation."

Iraq faces decades of sand storms

Reuters Baghdad reporter Aseel Kami today relayed Iraqi Deputy Environment Minister Kamal Latif's warning that, "despite efforts to restore the marshes, Iraq was likely to suffer from dusty weather for a majority of days over the next decade."

The June 21, 2012 article at reuters.com reported that "sandstorms started to increase and become more severe after the wetlands were dried out by Saddam's government in the 1990s to flush out rebels living there."

"I expect we will reach 300 days of dusty and stormy weather per year during the coming 10 years if the circumstances stay as they are," Latif is quoted as saying. "Three-hundred days a year means a catastrophe for the economy and human health."

The current situation could be but a harbinger of the greater calamity foreseen by Jeremiah the prophet, following invasion, capture, punishment, burning, abandonment, civil war, plundering and a horrific flood event -- "Chaldea... will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a parched land, and a desert... She will be completely desolate; everyone who passes by Babylon will be horrified..." (Jer 50:12-13).

The curse of a "drought on her waters" (Jer 50:38) so that "her cities... become an object of horror, a parched land and a desert" (Jer 51:42), rendering the land of Babylon "a perpetual desolation" (Jer 51:62), is the final judgment decreed upon the land of the Chaldeans, the land of Babylon, as a "vengeance of the Lord" (Jer 50:15).

Is the present "dusty weather" -- a result of an "increase in temperature and lack of rain" according to Latif -- just a taste of the coming disaster?

Nine judgments were pronounced upon the land of Babylon: invasion by a great nation and many kings, humiliating capture and occupation, punishment of the "arrogant one", burning of the cities, abandonment by the reconstruction forces, defeat in a civil war with the Medes, plundering of her treasures by the conquering armies, a catastrophic flood event and the final desolation brought on by unrelenting drought.

The first three have occurred in order. Will the cities burn and the reconstructionists abandon Babylon? If both occur, look for war with the Medes (Kurds), defeat and plunder, flood and drought. Fulfillment of a 2,600 year old prophecy.

Iraq's Kurdish tensions over oil worsen

THE NATIONAL | Florian Neuhof | April 10, 2012
The tensions between Baghdad and Erbil over Kurdish control of its oil resources have been further stoked by comments from Iraq's top oil official.

The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) last week announced a halt to its exports, frustrated by the continued reluctance of the central government to sign off payments for oil flowing out of the autonomous region.
Hussein Al Shahristani, Iraq's deputy prime minister for energy affairs, responded by criticising the contracts awarded to international oil companies by the KRG as too generous, sayingthe companies were given "what they dreamt of in any place in the world".

The central government "had many remarks on the oil contracts signed in Kurdistan in the north, which do not achieve any profit for Iraq", he told Al Iraqiya TV.

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Jeremiah's prophecy of doom on Babylon the land of the Chaldeans in chapters 50 through 51 in the hebrew bible describes the rise of the Medes -- today known as the Kurds of Kurdistan -- into a conquering power: "Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers! The LORD has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because his purpose is to destroy (Babylon)..." (Jer 51:11). "'Shout for joy over Babylon, for the destroyers will come to her from the north,' declares the LORD," (Jer 51:48).

"'I am going to arouse and bring up against Babylon a horde of great nations from the land of the north, and they will draw up their battle lines against her; from there she will be taken captive. Their arrows will be like an expert warrior who does not return empty-handed. And Chaldea will become plunder; all who plunder her will have enough,' declares the LORD," (Jer 50:9-10). "Summon against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz,... the kings of the Medes,... every land of their dominion," (Jer 51:27-28).

But first Babylon will be softened up by a conflagration of burning cities (Jer 50:32; 51:58), and a subsequent abandoning by the occupying reconstructionists (Jer 51:9). And then, following defeat at the hands of the Kurds and their plundering of Babylon's treasures, Jeremiah describes the final destruction coming by way of a devastating flood event (Jer 51:42) and subsequent drought (Jer 50:38; 51:36) that renders the land completely desolate and uninhabited (Jer 50:39-40; 51:62), a "parched land and a desert, a land in which no man lives, and through which no son of man passes," (Jer 51:43).

Could we be seeing the rise of the Medes into a self-sufficient power through oil wealth, and the building of tensions between the semi-autonomous Kurdistan government and the central Iraqi government? Will the tensions boil over into all out civil war? Will the Kurds plunder Babylon's liquid treasures?

"Farming is latest casualty in drought-stricken Iraq"

This was the headline from an August 6th, 2008 article at NPR.org describing the on-going drought besieging farmland throughout Iraq. Some Iraqi farmers say, according to the article, that it is the worst drought they have seen in their lifetimes.

U.S. Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, is quoted as saying,
"It really is heart-wrenching to see the Iraqi people be driven to go through so much. They've had multiple wars, they have had this insurgency and terrorist action, and now they've got to contend with the drought."

Jeremiah describes drought as the final judgment on Babylon that results in complete desolation, one that leaves the land of Chaldea uninhabited forever: "Here cities have become an object of horror, a parched land and a desert, a land in which no man lives, and through which no son of man passes... This place (shall be) cut off, so that there will be nothing dwelling in it, whether man or beast, but it will be a perpetual desolation" (Jeremiah 51:43, 62).

This final desolation of Jeremiah's prophecy follows a catastrophic flood event, which follows a massive military defeat at the hands of the "Medes", the present-day Kurds of the north. That defeat follows an abandonment by the occupying forces, which follows widespread burning of the cities by fire. That follows the execution of the "arrogant one", the "king of Babylon", and that follows the capture of his city and the scattering of his army in a mass invasion by a "great king and many nations."

And so the present drought is not yet the final desolation, but seems to be another small-scale harbinger of that doom upon the country, just as the devastating flooding in Kurdistan two years ago warned of the coming flood judgment that wipes out the cities of Iraq and destroys the canals and waterways that give the land its life-sustaining capability.

Just as the first Gulf War was the harbinger for the second.

And so Jeremiah offers the warning of the harbinger: "Be afraid of the report that will be heard in the land -- for the report will come one year, and after that another report in another year, and (then) violence will be in the land..." (Jeremiah 51:46).

"A drought on her waters; she has been engulfed with tumultuous waves"

Iraq shall be ultimately uninhabited, because she will become a "parched land and a desert" (Jer 51:43). And she will become a desert, because Jeremiah decrees a "drought on her waters, and they will be dried up!" (Jer 50:38). And again: "I shall dry up her sea and make her fountain dry" (Jer 51:36). And what is Iraq's "sea" and "fountain"? It is the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. These two rivers are interconnected throughout Iraq by an "elaborate network of canals" that control flooding and provide irrigation for agriculture in the alluvial plain between them. The Iraqi dams not only provide hydroelectic power, but also act to divert the rivers' water into lakes and channels to protect the cities from flooding.

Flooding. "The sea has come up over Babylon; she has been engulfed with its tumultuous waves. Her cities have become an object of horror, a parched land and a desert, a land in which no man lives, and through which no son of man passes" (Jer 51:42-43). And so Jeremiah is told by God: "(A)s soon as you finish reading this scroll, you will tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates" (Jer 51:63).

It is interesting that the locals call the reservoir behind the Ataturk Dam on the Euphrates in southeast Turkey "the sea." This dam is "one of the world's largest earth-and-rock fill dams, with an embankment 604 feet (184 m) high and 5,971 feet (1,820 m) long" according to the Ataturk Dam website. Here's a picture of this earth-and-rock fill dam:











There used to be an earth-and-rock fill dam near where I live. It was called the Teton Dam. It "failed abruptly" on June 5, 1976. Here's a picture of it collapsing:



There is a fantastic slide show of the entire failure in progress at this site: "Teton Dam Failure." The downstream communities of Rexburg, Wilford, Sugar City, Salem and Hibbard were severely affected, with Sugar City being literally "wiped from the river bank" and 80% of Rexburg destroyed.

This is what the site looks like today, 30 years later:



Ironically, the Bureau of Reclamation built the dam for "flood control."