Word: basra
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...fading light, two flatbed trucks trundle slowly up the highway from Basra to Baghdad, bearing a precarious cargo: a pair of Soviet-era T-52 tanks, their long gun barrels pointed defiantly at the sky. Rumor has it that Iraqi heavy armor is deliberately being moved around in full display to allay public concerns about the army's fighting capabilities. If that is indeed the intention, then the T-52s are being hauled in the wrong direction. The folks who most need that kind of reassurance are the citizens of Basra...
Iraq's southernmost city is just an hour's drive from Kuwait. If the U.S. goes to war with Iraq, American forces will almost surely secure Basra early on as they push north toward Baghdad. They will want a continuing presence in the area to keep potentially rebellious Iraqi Shi'ites, who are concentrated around Basra, under control. And if the stories about Saddam Hussein's scorched-earth strategy are true, then Basra, ringed as it is with oil fields, could turn into an environmental deathtrap. "We know we're heading for a disaster," says surgeon Akram Hamoodi, director...
...familiar predicament for Basra. Strategically poised on the bank of the Shatt al Arab, one of the Middle East's busiest waterways, the city has been a juicy target for raiders, including the Persians, Turks and British, for more than 600 years. It was heavily shelled by the Iranians during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. In the 1991 Gulf War, allied forces controlled access to the city but did not need to enter it in strength; the Iraqi army had pulled out without much of a fight. Could Iraqi soldiers turn and run again? That's a prospect nobody...
...drawing from long experience and with a minimum of fuss, Basra is preparing for a prolonged conflict. The hospital is building up its blood bank, aiming for at least a month's supply of 100 pints daily, from the normal demand of 20 pints. "The one good thing about the war with Iran is that it made us experts at this kind of situation," Hamoodi says...
...have to be a civil engineer to see that the forts, many of which are clustered around small settlements between Basra and the town of Arama, are crude constructions. They don't look particularly durable, and seem unprotected from aerial attack. Nonetheless, they will likely play an important role in any land war. In a flat, barren landscape, they offer the only high ground...