Pedestrians walk on a bridge over the Tigris River, which snakes through Baghdad and divides the city. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers help make up the Fertile Crescent and provide a vital source of life in an otherwise arid region. But years of pollution and war have taken their toll. Upon visiting Baghdad in 2004, one New York Times reporter described the Tigris as "a smelly, shrunken, deserted, refuse-strewn ghost of its former splendor."

Library of Congress

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