Reply #5: Invasion Robs Baghdad of its Beauty

[chlamor]

Invasion robs Baghdad of its beauty

Thursday 24 March 2005, 4:53 Makka Time, 1:53 GMT  

The war has exacted a heavy toll on the Iraqi capital
Baghdad, whose name means the Garden of God, has fallen from grace.

Known for centuries as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, its landscape has been marred by concrete blast walls, barbed wire, steel barricades, sandbags and crumbling buildings pockmarked by bullet holes or ransacked by explosions.

Things have become so bad that the Iraqi capital has dropped to the bottom of a quality of life survey of 215 cities, conducted by the London-based Mercer Human Resource Consulting. "We used to be under sanctions and the economic conditions were dire, but never was the city so ugly," Fadhila Dawud, a teacher who used to take her students on picnics along the banks of the Tigris, said.

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Glorious past

Once dubbed the City of Peace, Baghdad was founded in the 8th century by Caliph Abu Jafar al-Mansur as the capital for his rising Muslim Abbasid empire. The city soon became the heart of mediaeval Muslim civilisation - a centre of arts, culture and architecture. 

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City of barricades

After the US-led invasion in March 2003, the city of five million became one large military barricade: Humvees and tanks roaming the streets, helicopters rattling above, checkpoints and soldiers everywhere

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/71466A7F-C7C6-42E8-93FC-0D1955D6FD4A.htm