Water-Purification Plant Opens In Baghdad

BAGHDAD -- U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker has christened a $56 million water-purification plant in the eastern part of Baghdad.

Baghdad government spokesman Hakim Abdul-Zahra told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Iraq that the plant will meet the daily needs of some 200,000 residents of restive Sadr City, where U.S.-backed Iraqi forces and the Imam Al-Mahdi Army Shi'ite militia clashed last spring.

The two-year project was commissioned by the U.S. Agency for International Development and built by a local contractor with technical help from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Sadr City residents protected workers and machinery during construction, project manager Khalid Hassan told Radio Free Iraq.