Rebuilding Iraq depends on repairing the power grid. IEEE Spectrum's Glenn Zorpette visits Iraq and speaks with Americans and Iraqis in the field, including Col. Frank Gonzales, who is trying to get power to homes across Iraq. Electricity is vital to the Iraqi economy, but repairing the infrastructure is a monumental task in an active war zone.
Col. Frank Gonzales, who heads the Project and Contracting Office in Iraq, describes his experience coming from his home town Las Vegas to Baghdad. The repair work on electricity infrastructure across the country is plagued by so called 'interdictions' - insurgent strikes - and local workers face great risks every day. Zorpette asks Gonzales what needs to be done to get reliable and constant electricity to the Iraqi people.
Upon his return, IEEE's Susan Hassle speaks with Zorpette about his visit to Iraq. They discuss how the reconstruction is being funded, the goals of the reconstruction effort, and how long America and her allies will remain tied up in Iraq.
This program was originally broadcast on IEEE Spectrum Radio.
Col. Frank Gonzales served as the Gulf Region Division Project and Contracting Office Chief of Staff and Security, in Iraq. He has served 28 years in the United States Military and achieved the rank of colonel at the age of 37.
Gonzales came to Baghdad to accommodate a request made of him by Maj. Gen. Chip Long, then Director of the Project and Contracting Office, to come and engineer the transition between PCO and Gulf Region Division. In honoring that request, Gonzales sacrificed walking away from an executive position in the civilian world and a promotion to brigadier general in his previous military capacity.
Glenn Zorpette is the executive editor at IEEE Spectrum magazine. Zorpette works closely with staff editors on feature articles and with the senior art director on covers and article illustrations. In 1993 he won a National Magazine Award for an article on Iraq’s efforts to build an atomic bomb. He has worked at Scientific American and Red Herring magazines before rejoining Spectrum in June 2001. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Brown University.
Susan Hassle (host) is the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Spectrum magazine. Hassle has more than 20 years of experience as an editor and journalist dealing with scientific and technical topics. She has served as editor-in-chief of the journal Nature Biotechnology, editor at The Neurosciences Institute at Rockefeller University, and as an editor for the New York Academy of Science's magazine, The Sciences. She has also taught in the Science and Environmental Writing program at New York University's School of Journalism.
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