Today is five years since the invasion of Iraq This post is part of the March 19 Iraq blogswarm Other posts in today's series are here and here

In the early 1990s, Saddam Hussein had a plan. He would drain the marshes, forever changing the traditional lives of the Marsh Arabs and destroying one of the world's great wetland areas around the Euphrates and the Tigris. As international sanctions bit into the Iraqi economy, Saddam wanted to use the water for agricultural irrigation to improve food production.

Over time, an estimated 90% of the habitat was destroyed. In 1993 the UN, US and other international funding bodies made the restoration of the wetlands a priority. The Iraq Marshlands Restoration Programme received funding from USAID which enabled some of the land to be reflooded and many Marsh Arabs to return. At the end of 2006, the $10 million USAID funding was withdrawn -- a pitiful 0.002% of the amount spent on fighting - leaving the small NGO Nature Iraq struggling to continue the work via their Eden Again programme. Staff have left due to threats on their safety and some have been killed.

A joint survey by Curtis Richardson, of the Duke Wetlands Center, and Najah Hussain of the University of Basra was completed in 2006 found:

Richardson said he is concerned about the future availability of water for restoration, citing the growth of dams in neighboring Turkey, Syria and Iran. He also emphasized that the haphazard destruction of dikes and dams by local marsh residents does not guarantee the restoration of healthy ecosystems.

"Just because the areas are flooded, doesn't mean they're being restored," he explained. "In fact, a lot of areas are still diked, and putting water in there at 50 degrees centigrade results in pretty much creating salt pans."

Alwash echoed the call for ecological restraint: "Frankly, at this point and time, I don't think the marshes can support any more people, being what they are right now."

"We can't really overstress nature," he said. "We need to give nature healing time before we stress her for providing a living and food for more people." -- PBS

The instability and chronic lack of funding means that the Iraqi marshes are yet another casualty of the war.

Added to the water pollution caused by munitions, toxic fumes, unsafe disposal of oil waste, it is clear that 5 years of conflict are going to have a long term effect on the Iraqi environment and will be another burden to those weakened by the war. When we add together the horrific human cost and the environmental cost - never mind the financial cost - we can only ask one question: Was it worth it?