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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iraq
Index
Figure 10. Transportation System, 1988
Transportation was one of the Iraqi economy's most active
sectors in the late 1980s; it was allocated a large share of the
domestic development budget because it was important to the
government for several reasons. Logistics became a crucial factor
in Iraq's conduct of the Iran-Iraq War. The government also
recognized that transportation bottlenecks limited industrial
development more than any other factor. Finally, the government
believed that an expanded transportation system played an
important political role by promoting regional integration and by
heightening the central government's presence in the more remote
provinces. For these reasons, the government embarked on an
ambitious plan to upgrade and to extend road, rail, air, and
river transport simultaneously. Iraq's main transportation axis
ran roughly northwest to southeast from Mosul via Kirkuk to
Baghdad, and then south to Basra and the Gulf. In the 1980s,
efforts were underway to link Baghdad more closely with the
Euphrates River basin to the west
(see
fig. 10).
Data as of May 1988
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