Glory Canal

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The Glory Canal or Glory River (Nahar al-Aaz) is a shallow canal in Iraq about two kilometers wide built by Saddam Hussein in 1993 to redirect water flowing from the Tigris river into the Shatt al-Arab^[1]. It is considered by many as an environmental and humanitarian disaster since it bypasses the Tigris-Euphrates alluvial salt marsh and effectively converted wetlands into a desert^[2]. After the First Gulf War, Saddam Hussein aggressively revived a program to divert the flow of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers away from the marshes in retribution for a failed Shia uprising^[3]. This directly effected the Marsh Arabs, forcing them to abandon the settlements in the region. Since 2003, the marshland ecoregion has recovered substantially with the breaching of dykes by local communities^[4].

[edit] See also

• Marsh Arabs
• Tigris-Euphrates river system
• Dancon/Irak
• Desertification
• Habitat destruction

[edit] External links

• [1] "Saddam Hussein Has Destroyed 90 Percent of Iraq’s Wetlands Heritage"
• [2] "The Marsh Arabs of Iraq: The Legacy of Saddam Hussein and an Agenda for Restoration and Justice"
• [3] The Eden Again Project

[edit] References