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The official British view of Basra: It's absolutely booming!
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| Contributor | kal |
| Last Edited | kal Aug 15, 2008 04:38am |
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| Category | General |
| Media | Newspaper - Guardian |
| News Date | Friday, August 15, 2008 10:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | House prices have doubled in a matter of months. Restaurants are opening alongside the waterside corniche. Oil-rich Kuwaitis are beginning to move in, and trade at the port is booming.
Welcome to Basra.
This is the remarkably rosy picture of life in Iraq's second city outlined by a senior British military figure today.
Major General Barney White-Spunner, just returned from commanding British forces in southern Iraq, claims Basra has been transformed. Less than a year ago, British soldiers were being attacked day and night. A week ago, White-Spunner says, he was having supper in a restaurant on Basra's corniche by the Shatt al-Arab waterway.
"Property prices have more than doubled since March. One house is going for £90,000, a threefold increase," he says, referring to the now desirable stretch of the city's riverbank walkway. He talks of the "return of the diaspora", with Christians and Sunnis coming back to their Shia-dominated city. Soldiers from the new Iraqi national army had recently built a number of Sunni mosques. And it is not only Basrawis buying property - Kuwaitis and others are helping to push up prices.
"The UK is getting close to what we set out to achieve," White-Spunner says, referring to British forces training the Iraqi army's local 14th division and to the Iraqi navy which he describes as "doing a fantastic job".
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