Anger at High Simmer in Baghdad

"It is not necessary for Uday and Qusay to be dead," Younis says. "We need water and electricity. At night, we have two hours of electricity on and four hours off. It was better before the war."

Iraqis warn that the failure to provide basic services has generated anger and may be helping fuel ongoing attacks against U.S. forces here. "Iraqis want electricity and work," says Mohammed Jassem, an unemployed Sunni electrical engineer. "If I do not have work or a better life, I will attack the Americans. So will many Iraqis."

But getting a constant supply of electricity to Baghdad means overcoming persistent looting and political sabotage and repairing damaged infrastructure. The de facto Iraqi electricity minister, Karim Hassan, admits that getting the power grid working the way it did before the war began is difficult. "We aimed to get to prewar levels by the end of this month," he says. "But the electricity system is fragile."

Hassan puts the current electricity generation figure at 3,200 megawatts, well short of prewar generation levels of 4,400 megawatts. He is cautious about predicting when power levels will increase and become more stable, saying it depends on whether sabotage and looting continue.