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Strategies & Market Trends : MARKET INDEX TECHNICAL ANALYSIS - MITA -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J.T. who wrote (16569)	3/21/2003 11:12:04 PM
From: J.T.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 19219

Why Basra matters news.bbc.co.uk By Kathryn Westcott BBC News Online With its close proximity to Iraq's borders with Kuwait and Iran and access to the Gulf, Basra has long been a strategic entrance point to the country. As such, it has long borne the brunt of wars. Iraq's third-largest city and is both strategically and psychologically important. Basra and the other southern Gulf port of Umm Qasr have long figured highly in US war plans. Securing Umm Qasr is a priority because it is a deep water port and the country's main supply route by sea. Troops will be able to use it to bring reinforcements to the south. Basra, itself, would open up a route to the capital 560km to the northwest, along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Basra and Umm Qasr are key to Iraq's southern oil wealth on the Faw peninsula. One of the first major objectives was to seize port facilities and secure the nearby 1000 or so oil wells, amid fears that Saddam Hussein would set them alight. The population of Basra is made up largely of Shia Arab Muslims, most of whom have little affection for Saddam Hussein and his Sunni Arab ruling elite. Key objectives The city still bears the scars of the brutal suppression by Saddam Hussein's special forces of a Shia rebellion at the end of the Gulf War. Thousands were killed, tortured or imprisoned. Many others fled to Iran. One objective for the troops will be to ensure that the fractious Shia south does not erupt into civil war. A large number of fighters from the military wing of the main Shia opposition party are based in Iran, and there are fears that they may cross the border and initiate a scramble for power. US military officials have spoken of a rapid and "benign" occupation of Basra and hopes that troops would be welcomed in the streets. They believe this would create a positive image of US and UK goals and undermine resistance in other parts of the country. According to reports, military commanders have drawn up extensive plans for humanitarian operations once the key areas in the south have been secured. Tradition has it that Basra was built near the biblical Garden of Eden. But there is little evidence of paradise in this hot, swampy region. Much of the south has not shared the material benefits provided by the once-busy port and oil fields. Few state resources have been spent on an area thought by many in the ruling Sunni Arab minority as traitorous. Basra, itself, has for more than a decade been a shadow of its former economic self. It was once the most ancient port in the Gulf, from whose shores the legendary vagabond Sinbad the Sailor embarked on his adventures. Today, hulks of ships, half-sunk during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s lie rusting in the Shatt al-Arab. Towering bronze statues of Iraqi soldiers along the waterway point accusingly at Iran - a grim reminder of the role the city played in Iraq's war with its neighbour. It became the headquarters for Iraq's armies and was subjected to heavy shelling by Iran. Tehran tried to capture Basra but never made it through the forbidding marshlands. A few years later, it was also pounded by the allied forces during the Gulf War - buildings were shelled and flattened, and electricity and water supplies were cut off by the bombing.