"العراق والخليج الفارسي" [ظ‎‎١‎٨] (٨٦٢/٤١)

IO INTRODUCTION
aircraft tend to keep to lines where water is found, since in emergency
they must come down by water. Bitumen is available for the surfac
ing of roads, but stone for metalling or ballasting is rare over great
stretches in the south, where the delta alluvium is churned by wheels
into a thick mud by winter rains. The maps of Iraq are therefore
covered with tracks ‘fit for motors only in dry weather .
In 1914 there was only one short length of railway in the country,
and Basra was an undeveloped river-port, where landing had to be
made by launches and barges from vessels anchored in the fairway.
By 1919 Basra was a modern port with miles of wharves, and rail
ways had been built to supply the British armies. These were relaid
and reorganized in the years that followed, and bridges were built to
improve road communications. With the completion of the railway
from Tel Kotchek to Baghdad in 1940, it might be said that the
country’s communications were sufficient for its peace-time needs.
Nevertheless since 194* the strain of war has necessitated a great
expansion of ports and communications, some of which will certainly
be superfluous when peace comes.
In Chapter XIII an account is given of the navigation on the Tigris
and of the railway system. Full details of war-time expansion are not
available for publication. Only a general pattern of the land routes
is given. For details of roads and tracks, which are always changing
in a country where metalling is rare, reference must be made to up-
to-date route-books. Brief mention is made of the main air-route
through the country, but everything is at present subordinated to the
pressing needs of war.
Oil
The international importance of Iraq because of the recent
discovery of oil has been briefly mentioned. Iraq shares with Persia
and Arabia an important fraction of the world’s supply of oil, which,
owing to the vast expenditure of oil resources since 1939* is certain
to become increasingly valuable, especially as Iraq is on one of the
world’s great airways. Already the oil is pumped from the rich fields
of Kirkuk 650 miles across the intervening deserts to Haifa and
Tripoli on the Mediterranean. The proximity of the Anglo-Iranian
Oil Company’s great refinery at Abadan, where oil is sent by pipes
from the Persian fields, the discovery of oil at Kuwait and Bahrein,
and the prospecting of other concessions in the gulf area must add
greatly to the strategic and international importance of Iraq.
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