Word: basra
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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...
...final phase of the Phony War. The Iraqi military has begun highly visible preparations to shore up defenses along the vital Basra-Baghdad highway. The Army has started to move troops and materials into defensive positions along the road, which was heavily bombed by U.S.-led forces during the Gulf War while the Iraqis were withdrawing their troops from Kuwait. In the event of a new war, U.S. and British forces will need to seize and hold this crucial artery, which links the Iraqi heartland to the country's only significant port...
...clear signs of preparations in the scores of small mud-and-brick forts that line the strategically important road. Officials were not immediately available for comment, and there had been no announcement of any specific military build-up. But when I passed this way en route to Basra only three days ago, most of the forts were empty or thinly manned. Now they were abuzz with activity...
...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...
...Hassan stalks through the cancer ward of the Basra hospital where several children lie hooked up to intravenous drips. She shows hideous photographs of damaged children, many of them little more than lumps of meat. Those did not make it, but there are plenty that would survive if only they had some medication. But these are poor people and cannot afford medicines. Cancer drugs, for instance, fall under the dual use category and are listed under UN sanctions. So, although medical services are highly subsidized in Iraq, these children can have no treatment. Leukemia patients are given a blood transfusion...