Amid Terror Attacks, Iraq Faces Water Crisis
Islamic State's assault on dams and water systems threatens Iraq's supply, which was already squeezed by dams in Turkey and Iran.
TELSKUF, Iraq—Viewed from afar, the two-mile-long Mosul Dam is an impressive sight on the flat, sunbaked northern plains.
The sorry state of Iraq's biggest dam, about 31 miles (50 kilometers) northwest of Mosul city on the Tigris River, shows how water has become another weapon in the terror group's arsenal. But its steadily retreating reservoir tells another story, one of how Iraq's water shortage is growing more urgent by the day.
Built in the early 1980s to supply water, irrigate fields, control floods, and generate electricity, the dam offers an apt metaphor for the war-torn country's shaky foundation. Its dry spillways are plastered with cement to fill cracks, while the permeable gypsum base has required injections of grout to prevent its collapse
