Electricity black market flourishing in Baghdad

Associated Press
When truck driver Said Abdul-Wahab al-Obeidi needed to find a new career after the roads of Iraq grew too dangerous, he looked for a business with a bright future. So he sold his rig, bought a massive generator and set up his own electric company. With Baghdad's electricity network in tatters after years of corruption, neglect and attacks, a thriving black market in power has sprung up across the capital. In nearly every neighborhood, multicolored bundles of wires flow from private generators that have all but replaced the national power grid. Power shortages in the capital have been a persistent complaint since the US-led invasion more than four years ago. But Baghdad residents say the problem has never been this bad -- not under crippling UN sanctions during deposed president Saddam Hussein's reign and not even during the opening rounds of the war in 2003...
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