It is here that the Euphrates River divides into the Al Hammar Marsh, and it was here that Saddam ... that ran past newly formed seas dappled by mud flats and clumps of golden reeds.

Locked in a straightjacket of levees, the river no longer feeds this other black gold into the marsh. Deprived of sediment ... almost unfathomable amount of mud and sand flowed south through ...