Yesterday we escorted a crane to a poor farm area in order to rip out buried irrigation pipes. These pipes provided water to fields of tomatoes, cucumbers, and hay. "That's a corn field there," said BBA Mohammed. I've never seen corn here so we argued about this for a minute. All the pipes we destroyed were illegal. Farmers siphon water from nearby government canals to keep from having to clean their own canals. "Did you ever think the government would come here and do this?" I asked one delinquent farmer. "I've been taking this water for a long time," he said.
In 1982 Saddam paid Turkish engineers to build 150km of canals in Yusufiya for irrigation and potable water. At the time Yusufiya was world renown for date palm trees. But Saddam's wars prevented important irrigation maintenance. Until recently Al Qaeda shot or threatened government workers who tried cleaning the canals. Nasar, the Yusufiya government irrigation engineer, asked American and Iraqi soldiers to escort him into the fields. The farmers knew they were breaking the law and didn't argue when the crane smashed their pipes. One farmer gave us lunch: unleavened bread, salted cucumber slices, wheels of cheese, fried eggs, and marmalade that everyone sipped from the same jar.
