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- <text id=90TT2484>
- <title>
- Sep. 17, 1990: The Water Weapon
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Sep. 17, 1990 The Rotting Of The Big Apple
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- GRAPEVINE, Page 19
- The Water Weapon
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>By David Ellis/Reported by Daniel S. Levy
- </p>
- <p> If the economic blockade against Iraq does not bite quickly
- enough, and Bush decides he would like to raise the ante
- without launching an attack, he has an intriguing option: cut
- off the water. Iraq's major rivers wash down from Turkey and
- Syria, two nations that are part of the alliance against Saddam
- Hussein. Turkey, which has already cut off key Iraqi oil
- pipelines, is in the better position to severely disrupt the
- flow. With some effort, the Ataturk dam on the Euphrates River
- could be used as a plug on the crucial water supply, and there
- are already enough antiaircraft missiles in place to defend
- it from Iraqi bombers. Another, more wasteful proposal is
- simply to divert feeder rivers into desert areas. U.S.
- officials are aware that the Iraqi regime worries about a
- cutoff: in the early days of the crisis, Baghdad pointedly
- warned Turkey not to tamper with its water.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
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