Paul Gigot on the Marsh Arabs:
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.
For centuries this region was among the world's lushest fresh-water marshlands, a cradle of ancient civilization and home to the Marsh Arabs of Iraq. Today this particular marsh village looks like the surface of the moon, only bleaker. There is nothing here but dirt and rock, straw huts and destitute Shiite Muslims. Saddam Hussein drained most of the marshland in revenge for the Arab uprising against him in 1991 after the first Gulf War, and after President George H.W. Bush had asked Iraqis to rise up against him. So the fall of Saddam, at last on April 9, was salvation day for the Marsh Arabs, and also a redemption day for one dreadful U.S. blunder.
More on the story of the Marsh Arabs can be found
here.
