Clerics watch as a nuclear-capable Shahab-3 missile, with a range of 1,200 miles, soars into the Iranian sky in military exercises near Qom

BUSHRA JUHI, ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

For 6,000 years, the river that flows through the heart of Baghdad nurtured the people who live along its banks - providing water, food, transport and recreation. But three years of war, plus pollution and politics, have transformed the storied Tigris into a stagnant sewer - and increasingly, into a graveyard for the victims of civil conflict. Some see it as a metaphor for this troubled country, reeling after years of war, deprivation and misrule. Police now routinely haul from the Tigris the bodies of victims of sectarian death squads. The bodies of 15 unidentified torture victims were found floating on a single recent day in the Tigris in Suwayrah, 25 miles south of Baghdad, said police Lt. Mohammed al-Shamari...

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