Tell me again why the insurgents will lay down their heavy weapons
THE WORLD
Road Perils in Iraq Add to Chaos, Shortages
By Nicholas Riccardi and Edmund Sanders
Times Staff Writers
April 20, 2004
BAGHDAD — At a sprawling desert camp in southern Iraq, U.S. soldiers sleep in trucks and Humvees because Iraqi merchants are afraid to deliver tents to them.
On a key road through the Sunni Triangle, masked men with Kalashnikov assault rifles occupy the concrete-block checkpoints the U.S. military once used.
And at Baghdad's airport, goods are piling up because Iraqi truckers refuse to brave the main highway to the capital or transport the material to other U.S. bases.
In Baghdad's central market, Iraqi shippers and merchants fret that business is drying up.
Of all the sudden changes in Iraq during the last month, control of the roads is among the most striking. The U.S.-led coalition has been unable to hold on to all of its supply and communication lines on vital routes leading from the capital. Insurgents have blown up key bridges, rocketed fuel convoys and seized hostages. Though there are no serious shortages, the perilous state of Iraq's roads adds to a sense of chaos in much of the country.
Over the weekend, the military announced it would close two of the country's biggest arteries to civilian traffic in an effort to get the fighting under control, cutting into Iraqi commercial life and raising fears of an economic slowdown.
"It's a good measure of how the coalition is doing when you can get in a car and drive to the Jordanian border and down to Najaf without worrying about it," said Charles Heyman, a senior analyst at Jane's Consulting Group, citing two of the routes that are occasionally under insurgent control. The fact that one cannot take those roads, he said, "is not a good sign."
American military officials acknowledge that there have been some supply shortages as a result of stepped-up insurgent activity on the routes. They are flying in more material from Kuwait and altering convoy routes and schedules. But they say there are no widespread shortages, and they vow to retake the roads.
