GOOD News from Iraq

On Monday, Iraq began flushing excess salinity out of millions of acres of land in a project aimed at cleansing rivers, breathing new life into dying soils and reviving what was once part of "the fertile crescent". Centuries of irrigation with salt water, improper drainage, and overuse have left this wetter, more arable part of the middle east as dry as the deserts which surround it.

The project was first discussed in the 1950's, and a working pump station was started up in the 1980's, but the area's constant state of war and later sanctions against it all but doomed the process over the years.

Restoration of the numerous irrigation canals and restoration of these lands may pave the path to Iraqi independence upon foreign food, which comprises nearly all of the food eaten in the country today.