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    Army engineers helping restore Iraqi wetlands WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Aug.4, 2004) -- The Mesopotamian Marshlands, considered by many to be the cradle of civilization, were largely drained by Saddam Hussein’s regime. Now the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is helping restore the historic wetlands. Located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the marshes were once among the world's largest wetlands. Within this 8,000-square-miles area, the 5,000-year-old culture of the Madan, or Marsh Arabs, developed the first alphabet. Before their destruction, the Mesopotamian Marshlands spanned an area roughly twice the size of the Florida Everglades. They were known...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S.-appointed Iraqi judge has issued an arrest warrant for one of the fiercest opponents of former President Saddam Hussein in connection with murder, politicians and lawyers familiar with the case said Friday. Abdul Karim al-Mohammadawi is known as "Prince of the Marshes" for leading resistance to Saddam in Iraq's southern marshlands even after the ousted dictator drained the wetlands in a campaign to crush Shi'ite rebels in the 1980s and 1990s. The warrant states that Mohammadawi, a former member of Iraq's now defunct Governing Council, is wanted in connection with the murder of a police officer...

Mass grave found in Iraq's southeast marsh region Amara, March 22 A grave containing the bodies of 15 men and two women has been found in Iraq's southeast marshlands, home to the Shiite Marsh Arab ethnic community, a spokesman for a leading militia said on Monday. "These people were killed in 1996 in fighting between people living in the marshes and the Iraqi army. The mass grave was found with the help of relatives who had come from abroad," said Badr Organisation spokesman Saad Hussein. "They asked us to find the mass grave and we located it over a...

    Partial Restoration of Iraqi Marshlands May Be FeasibleWashington -- Despite what initially seemed to be irrevocable damage to the marshlands of southern Iraq at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime, it now appears that a significant portion of the wetlands may be restored as sustainable managed ecosystems. During a February 24 hearing before the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia several witnesses testified that measures could be taken to rehabilitate portions of the desiccated marshes. "The good news in Iraq is that restoration is completely within the realm of possibility. The difficulty lies in creating...

Vow to improve Marsh Arabs life Baghdad, Iraq Press, February 3, 2004 – The interim authorities have pledged to extend a helping hand to the thousands of deportees who have decided to return to the southern marshlands. In the 1990s, the former regime of Saddam Hussein drove into destitution and internal exile hundreds of thousands of marsh Arabs after drying up the water that sustained a way of life dating back to around 5,000 years. As water levels rise and more and more marsh Arabs return to their ancestral land, the authorities are determined not to let them down again....

As the tide of violence recedes, Marsh Arabs hope for new start Patrick Graham in al-Juweibir sees the people of southern Iraq slowly return to their way of life as Saddam's dams are unblocked. But, they explain, it's not just water that they need Sunday October 19, 2003 The Observer Haider doesn't know a lot about fishing, he says, and tosses his net out into the water from his narrow boat. His small catch of zuri, just covering the bottom of a Styrofoam crate, won't fetch more than a dollar. Barely enough, he tells us as he punts through the...

'A Gift From God' Renews a Village Iraqi Engineers Revitalize Marshes That Hussein Had Drained By Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, October 11, 2003; Page A01 ZAYAD, Iraq -- The surging water from the Euphrates River first quenched the desiccated soil around this village. Then, with a steady crescendo, it smothered farming tracts, inundated several homes and enveloped the landscape to the horizon. "Hamdulillah," intoned Salim Sherif Kerkush, the stout village sheik. Thank God. Thin reeds now sprout on the glassy surface. Aquatic birds build nests on tiny islands. And lanky young boys in flowing tunics spend the...

Project to restore wetlands destroyed by Saddam begins By Terri Judd 10 October 2003 A project has begun to reverse one of the greatest humanitarian and ecological disasters of recent times, the draining of the wetlands that were home to Iraq's 250,000 Marsh Arabs. Saddam drained the wetlands after the Marsh Arabs, whose world of reed houses, water buffalo and canoes captivated the writer Sir Wilfred Thesiger, supported the Shia revolt in the early Nineties. Some experts believe it may not be possible to recreate a way of life which had existed for 5,000 years in the largest wetlands in...

The Marsh Arabs of Iraq have given up waiting for outsiders to restore their wetlands. Local people are taking matters into their own hands by breaching dykes and shutting down pumping stations in a bid to restore the marshes drained by Saddam Hussein's regime. But some experts worry that their actions could hamper the region's recovery. Five months ago, New Scientist reported that an international team of wetland experts, backed by the US State Department, planned to gradually re-flood the wetlands (print edition, 26 April 2003). But reports from inside Iraq reveal this plan is increasingly irrelevant. Even as Saddam's...

WILTON, CONN. - Good news for those rebuilding Iraq: Mother Nature has pitched in. Water is returning to the Mesopotamian marshlands, turned into salt-encrusted desert by Saddam Hussein. The marshlands used to cover nearly 8,000 square miles (larger than Maryland) in southern Iraq, above the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. They have been known since ancient times as the Fertile Crescent and were said to be the biblical Garden of Eden. More than 5,000 years ago the Sumerians lived there and recorded in their artwork the domed reed houses and the newly domesticated water buffalo that have marked...

Middle East/North Africa | Iraq The southern marshes as they looked in 2000. By May 2001, more than 90 percent of the Al 'Amarah and the Hawr al Hammar marshes were almost completely dry according to the UN Environmental Program. (DOS Photo) 24 April 2002Iraqi Regime Devastates Environment of Marsh Arabs Satellite imagery shows extensive injury to wetland ecosystemBy Jim Fuller Washington File Science Writer Washington — The marshlands of southern Iraq are a unique part of the world. The region, lying between the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, is where the ancient Sumerians, it is...

<p>AL TURABAH, Iraq--To reach the ninth level of Saddam's Inferno, you take a plane from Baghdad south to Basra, then hop an open-air 40-minute helicopter ride in 118-degree heat to what was once the world's closest approximation to the Garden of Eden.</p>

On the edge of the Iraqi marshlands, guerrillas who fought Saddam Hussein for years say they fear that Britain and the United States now want to take away their weapons so they can occupy Iraq for many years. Al Sayyid Kadum al-Hashimi, a leader in the town of Majar al-Kabir south of Amara where six British soldiers were killed on Tuesday, said yesterday: "It is the belief of people here, and it is believed by all other Iraqis, that the British want to disarm us so they can stay for a long time."Guerrillas, who resisted the Iraqi army for almost...

Marsh Arabs threaten to resist 'army of occupation' By Patrick Cockburn in Majar al-Kabir 27 June 2003On the edge of the Iraqi marshlands, guerrillas who fought Saddam Hussein for years say they fear that Britain and the United States now want to take away their weapons so they can occupy Iraq for many years. Al Sayyid Kadum al-Hashimi, a leader in the town of Majar al-Kabir south of Amara where six British soldiers were killed on Tuesday, said yesterday: "It is the belief of people here, and it is believed by all other Iraqis, that the British want to disarm...

HAWR AL HAMMAR, Iraq -- It's 100 degrees at noon, the hour when the sky itself seems to melt into chrome-colored lakes--rippling pools that shimmer like mirrors in the vast salt pans of southern Iraq. These days, however, those liquid sheets of light are no mirage. They are real water--and one of the most poignant symbols of liberation since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Meteor clue to end of Middle East civilisations By Robert Matthews, Science Correspondent (Filed: 04/11/2001) SCIENTISTS have found the first evidence that a devastating meteor impact in the Middle East might have triggered the mysterious collapse of civilisations more than 4,000 years ago. satellite images of southern Iraq have revealed a two-mile-wide impact crater caused by a meteor Studies of satellite images of southern Iraq have revealed a two-mile-wide circular depression which scientists say bears all the hallmarks of an impact crater. If confirmed, it would point to the Middle East being struck by a meteor with the violence equivalent...

GENEVA - Water is returning to Iraq's southern dried-out marshlands, the U.N. said in a report on the home of a unique Arab culture almost destroyed by Saddam Hussein in apparent retaliation for an uprising. The United Nations' environmental agency UNEP said mechanical diggers had broken down barriers and levees built under Saddam, allowing water to flow into the area - believed by some archaeologists to be the Garden of Eden in scripture. Satellite images of the area, once home to some 450,000 largely Muslim Shi'ite Marsh Arabs made famous by British traveller and explorer Wilfred Thesiger, "dramatically reveal streams...

<p>"War would have devastating human and environmental consequences. The last Gulf war killed two hundred thousand people and left many of the survivors malnourished, diseased, and dying. Damage to ecosystems in the area remained years after the war ended. What would be the consequences of another war?"</p>

Marsh Arabs, modern Sumerians 05/14/03 JOE ROJAS-BURKE Amid the ruined temples of a civilization abandoned 4,000 years ago in southern Iraq, archaeologists on a 1968 expedition noted a striking parallel: Fragments of the long-extinct Sumerian civilization they were unearthing seemed to depict the present-day lives of the nearby tribal people. From Our Advertiser They speared fish from slender wooden boats, herded water buffalo and fashioned fantastic vaulted houses from the few building materials the marshes had to offer: reeds, clay and buffalo dung. Their secluded villages dotted the vast marshes and stream-braided lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers....

A herd of chocolate-brown water buffaloes snort their way across a corn field followed by their owner, Ahmed Kadhum Na'eem, who 18 days ago transported them on trucks from a farm outside Baghdad in an eight hour journey, the most exciting trip of his life. For the first time in decades his family have been able to return to farm the marshlands which they had lived off for generations but - along with thousands of other Marsh Arabs or Ma'dan - were forced to abandon. From the late 1980s Saddam Hussein drained most of the 4,000 square miles of the...