SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq ­ The cholera ward of Sulaimaniyah Teaching Hospital is a sorrowful place to contemplate the chains of fate tying the United States to Iraq.

Before the war, former Secretary of State Colin Powell famously warned President Bush of the Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it.

The ashen-faced men, women and children groaning with pain here point to an inescapable conclusion: Iraq is still broken.

Since Aug. 15, nearly 17,000 patients have come through this hospital, sickened by the water they drink or the food they eat. They are so emptied of fluids by acute diarrhea that many arrive unconscious.

Most do not have cholera. But of the 500 or so confirmed cases, nine have proved fatal. About 2,000 other cases of cholera and two other fatalities have occurred elsewhere in Iraq.

The low fatality rates show it is a mild form of the ancient plague, said Kurdistan Health Minister Abdul O. Yones.

From chlorine to water pipes, from pumps to wells, to the electricity that runs the waterworks, Iraq has fallen apart, even here in the mostly peaceful provinces of the Kurdistan region.

Many billions of dollars of American taxpayer money have gone into the task of putting Iraq together again, and several American companies have arrived to help with the job.

Herish Muharam Muhamad, chairman of the Kurdistan-Iraq Board of Investment, welcomes other companies to come, both to mend and to profit.

"There are many challenges to solve, so we are willing to take partners," he said. "I may ask a partner, for example, how to overcome cholera in the best way."

The first confirmed case of cholera this summer came from Kirkuk, a city about 50 miles south of here that remains caught up in the violence of Iraq's many-faceted war.

Dr. Yones went to investigate and was told the municipal water works had no chlorine.

Insurgents have tried to fashion poisonous gas clouds using chlorine-filled car bombs, and those primitive efforts created some shortages of the germ-killing water additive.

The health minister dispatched a ton of the chemicals from the Kurds' supply.

Once cholera spread to Sulaimaniyah and the rest of Kurdistan, however, chlorine wasn't the problem, Dr. Yones said.

"It's not a shortage of chlorine. It's a shortage of water and a lack of proper water projects," he said.

Under Saddam Hussein, the Kurds say they were deliberately neglected by Baghdad on infrastructure projects.

Water and sanitation systems in Irbil and Sulaimaniyah, the two big cities of Kurdistan, are many decades old and inadequate to handle the population surge both cities have seen since 2003.

When municipal waterworks pump out clean water, leaking water and sewer lines lead to contaminated supplies. Forty percent of the water coming out of the home taps fed by municipal water systems is contaminated with asbestos, sewage or other matter, Dr. Yones said.

More than half the wells dug to provide water to homes in areas not served by water pipes are contaminated.

Dr. Yones, who as a guerrilla fighter against Saddam Hussein went by the nom de guerre Dr. Zryan, blames much of this on Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority that directed the occupation of Iraq from 2003 to 2005.

Ambassador Bremer, chief executive officer at a crisis management firm before coming to Iraq, decreed a guaranteed income for all Iraqi families of $80 a month, along with protracted distribution of food rations to everyone.

Many farmers who found this ready cash and food easier to get in the cities abandoned their farms and moved to Irbil and Sulaimaniyah, putting a strain on municipal water supplies.

The insurgents fighting to bring about a religious or ethnic dictatorship have added to the problem by blowing up power lines and weakening an already inadequate electrical system.

Blackouts are common, and they often render useless the pumps that mix chlorine into the water, said Dr. Sawar Sidiq, administrator of the Sulaimaniyah Teaching Hospital.

When new pumps were added to some municipal waterworks – compliments of U.S. aid money – they broke pipes that could not handle the pressure, Dr. Yones said.

The caseload of patients coming into the hospitals fell to 30 a day two weeks ago but rose sharply to 100 a day over the weekend, said Dr. Yones.

He said he would urge municipal officials to restrict the sale of homemade juices and unpeeled fruits and vegetables in the markets.

Dr. Yones has asked Baghdad for water tankers to bring clean supplies to hard-hit neighborhoods, but Baghdad has not been quick to respond to Kurdish needs in the past.

So the Kurds look for ways to help themselves. Foreign oil companies like Dallas-based Hunt Oil are welcome.

Even though Baghdad warns that such deals aren't legal and the State Department complains they upset the acutely fragile politics of reconciliation, the Kurds are losing patience.

They are ready to start putting the broken pieces back together again.