] Most Iraqis have been unable to access the Internet since ] March 31, when cruise missiles hit servers and satellite ] dishes at the Information Ministry in Baghdad. Repeated ] strikes on telephone switching centers have also disabled ] much of the phone service in the city, rendering dial-up ] modems -- Iraqis' predominant means of connecting to the ] Internet -- useless. Additionally, the war has knocked ] out almost all of the websites operated by the Iraqi ] government and state-controlled media. ] ] Meanwhile, the U.S. government's plans for repairing ] Iraq's IT infrastructure are still unclear. The Bush ] administration has charged the Agency for International ] Development with rebuilding the infrastructure and public ] facilities in post-war Iraq. But none of the agency's ] eight projects currently out for bid includes repairing ] Iraq's telecommunications or information technology. I'm particularly interested in this too, to find out what happened to Salam Pax, the "Where Is Raed" blogger. According to a 3/31/2003 article in Salon, his IP was hit hard: From http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/03/31/iraq_offline/index.html ] Meanwhile, two primary Internet access points for Iraqi ] citizens -- among them a high-profile blogger using the ] alias "Salam Pax" -- have been unreachable since the weekend. ] ] A Cisco switch that connected Baghdad residents to the Internet ] stopped responding Saturday morning, Iraq time. The device, ] located at Internet protocol address 62.145.94.250, served as a ] Web gateway for many citizens. ] ] The headers of a March 19 e-mail message from Salam Pax, author ] of Where Is Raed? a popular blog chronicling life in Baghdad, ] showed he connected to the Internet using the switch. Pax's ] electronic journal has not been updated since early last week. Salam Pax's blog, last updated March 24, is here: http://dearraed.blogspot.com |