Eric Alterman posted my e-mail to him

[La_Serpiente]

on his blog "Altercation"

http://www.msnbc.com/news/752664.asp

Name: Sean
Hometown: Honolulu, HI
Comments:

I found this little tidbit interesting. In a speech given at Georgetown University on Oct. 30, 2003, Sec. Wolfowitz lectured a group of students that were protesting the war. He went on further to mention the Marsh Arabs and how they were once a thriving society that made a rainforest in Iraq until "CUT OFF THEIR WATER". (They also have his speech on CSpan.)

Well, unfortunately, the US Congress cut funding to the Marsh Arabs as was reported in the foreign press, the newspaper ”The Guardian.” From article: “Restoring an area that is said to have been the biblical Garden of Eden, marshlands that Saddam Hussein turned into an arid salt bed in his purge of Shiite Muslims, was one of President Bush’s priorities when he asked Congress for $20.3 billion to help rebuild Iraq.”

It also was among the few items House Republicans decided to cut, at least for now, if the United States had to pay for it. They chopped $100 million from Bush’s bill for resurrecting the Mesopotamian marshlands between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. — Guardian, Oct. 15

Kind of makes me wonder, do they really care about the Marsh Arabs? -- The Guardian