Patrolling Iraq's waterways
Updated on 20 February 2007
Channel 4 News follows the work of Iraq's coastguards as they take on the oil smugglers on the Shatt Al Arab waterway.
It was meant to be the bounty from which the coalition would pay for the reconstruction of Iraq; but four years on the oil is still not flowing at pre-war levels and up to $4bn worth of revenue is lost to the country every year by oil smuggling across the country's porous borders.
One on the main routes for the smuggling is across the Shatt al Arab waterway and into Iran; and US officials say arms for the insurgency are coming back the other way.
Channel 4 News has been to Basra and out onto the waterway with the Iraqi Coast Guard who are trying to stem the flow, as our Foreign Affairs Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh reports.
