An Iraqi worker pauses from work on a leaky pipe in the massive Iskandariyha power plant on January 21, 2009 in Iskandariyha, Iraq. Built in the early 1980s, the Iskandariyha plant is Iraq’s largest and most important providing a significant percentage of the country’s total electrical power. Years of neglect by Saddam’s government, as well as a 1991 aerial strike by the US during the Persian Gulf War, have left the plant hobbled sometimes only operating at half capacity. The plant burns Iraq’s plentiful crude oil to generate power with almost no modern environmental regulations while its employees, numbering over 1000, work on dirty, oil-slicked floors with little safety equipment. By Chris Hondros/Getty.

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