Temperature: “As the blast furnace of summer brought 115-plus-degree days….”

Electricity: “We’re getting about one hour every four days, and we don’t have cold water or the refrigerator, so we’re buying ice from the market.”

(Thought experiment: just try to imagine 115 degrees and no electricity worth speaking of.)

Cost of a generator: $450

Average monthly income: $200

Market price of gas: “there is a severe fuel shortage here. So rather than waiting in gas lines for up to eight hours and paying about $1.15 a gallon, most Iraqis buy it on the black market for about $3.30 a gallon.”

Waiting for gas: “a friend who recently went to fill up his gas can at 5 a.m. finally made it to the pump at 2:30 p.m.”

Government statistics: “A May 31 U.S. Embassy “fact sheet” about the electricity situation in Iraq asserted that Baghdad receives an average of eight hours of power a day. A spokesman for the Ministry of Electricity said residents received six hours of power a day.”

Infrastructure investments: “the United States has spent $3.1 billion to improve electricity in Iraq”

Fruits thereof: “the power generated in May was 6 percent less than prewar levels”