Even in war, Iraqi truckers stay at the wheel

BAGHDAD - Bombs may be falling, but for Kassem and his aged truck it is business as usual.

Using his knowledge of the back roads, Kassem turned up in Iraq's yesterday with a truck load of the finest Basra tomatoes.

On the outward journey, he took eggs.

"The money involved in transport at these times is worth it," Kassem told Reuters as he unloaded his truck at the Jamileh vegetable market in Saddam city, a huge Baghdad slum.

Kassem and drivers like him seem unconcerned by the US blitz on the capital and the prospect of running into American invasion forces marching on the city.

"Tomatoes are in season in the south. I took to Basra a load of eggs, which are in short supply there," he said. "Bombs made craters in the expressway, but we know the side roads."

Iraqi officials say US forces have reached the Diwaniyah intersection south of Baghdad, which controls one of two highways to Basra. Another road that passes through Amara to the east is considered safer.

US planes are relentlessly bombing Iraqi defences around the southern entrance to Baghdad.

The highways are mostly empty, except for drivers like Kassem or families who are leaving for the relative safety of the central provinces.

Despite the advance of US and British forces, fruit and vegetables keep coming to Jamileh market from all over Iraq.

Licensed distributors sell them in bulk to grocers or to vendors with carts drawn by donkeys and horses.

Garlic and onions come from Kut on the road to Basra, cabbage from Samerra to the north and potatoes from Yousifieh, southwest of Baghdad.

In one month's time the season starts for raggi, or watermelons, which Iraqis consider the tastiest in the world.

Transportation costs have raised the price of southern produce.

Basra, Iraq's second city, is itself caught up in the war.

Britain, having waited in vain for an anticipated revolt by the city's Shi'ite Muslims against President Saddam Hussein, has declared it a target.

Kassem, whose tomatoes come from farms on the outskirts of Basra, offered no details of life in the city.

But Basra tomatoes now sell for the equivalent of $1.10 a kilo, compared to 20 cents before the start of the war.

Kassem now charges around $1600 to make the trip to Basra compared to $135 before the war, but the cost of produce from the centre of the country has remained stable.

Iraq's topography, from an alluvial plain in the south to mountains in the north, allows it to produce fruit and vegetables for most of the year.

The peoples of the ancient Mesopotamian plain have practised agriculture and trading for millennia.

Many Iraqi farmers live as their ancestors did thousands of years ago -- in mud houses on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

"Produce will not be cut off. Farms surround Baghdad and farmers will simply take their pick-up trucks and drive off road to come here if roads get blocked," Mohammad Abel Jabbar, one of the distributors at the Jamileh market, predicted.

"The Americans do not know what the Iraqis are capable of."

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq