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Everything's up to date in Basra
The Hum-vee presents a magnificent profile against the desert. Low,
sleek and
wide, it has excellent traction, and unlike many four-wheel drive vehicles,
it is difficult to tip over. The highway from Kuwait to Iraq - the "highway
of
death" for Iraqi soldiers during the first Gulf war - is now clotted
with
Hum-vees. There are soft tops, hard tops, ones with machine guns mounted
on the
roof, cruising in speed and style, all a testament to the money and
technological puissance of the U.S. military.
British forces by contrast putt along in tall, skinny and aging Land
Rovers, designed somewhere in the murky midst of the mid-twentieth century.
Un-air-conditioned, English soldiers drive with their windows up through
the desert,
claiming it is cooler without the torrid breeze. British equipment looks
like
that of an older, poorer cousin -- well meaning, but from another age.
The alleys and back streets of old Iraqi towns were designed with little
consideration for the advancement of technology and the thinking of
the architects
of modern military equipment. Narrow alleyways present security problems
for U.S. troops in cities, as Hum-vees cannot fit into many crannies
in older
parts of town. However, aging and narrow British Land Rovers can negotiate
like
terriers the rat-infested labyrinths of old Basra. The peculiarities
of place
often can confound the most expensive technology.
James Clark
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(c) 2003 Millennium Relief & Development Services, vol. 3 no. 9
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