If clean water is not available they will drink whatever they can. And, again, the position in Basra – where there is virtually no safe alternative to the public water supply for the poorest people – is particularly serious.In Baghdad, many people and communities have been digging wells as a safeguard against failure of the system. Churches and mosques, for instance, are sinking 50 such wells to supply their local areas, in a scheme part-funded by Christian Aid.But in Basra, that is not an option. The geology of the area means the ground water, from which wells would draw their supplies, is too saline for human consumption. The same goes for the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that converge in the marshes north of the city. Normal water treatment plants, such as the failed plant of Wafa al-Qaed, cannot remove the salt to make the river water potable.A number of special reverse osmosis plants were built in Basra to do the job but they involve relatively expensive and sophisticated technology and are very hard to maintain.

They are not thought to have operated for some years.The supply of fresh water for Basra actually comes from the Baghdad area, transported in a specially dug channel that diverts water from the Tigris before it becomes too salty. But on its 500-mile journey south in the open channel it becomes heavily polluted with agricultural waste and chemicals and sewage from towns and villages along the way. That is the water that the Wafa al-Qaed plant normally treats, through the standard system of filtration and sedimentation.It must then be pumped into elevated storage tanks, before it can be fed into the city’s water distribution pipes. If power has also failed on those pumps, the taps will remain dry even if clean water can be restored.But not only drinking water is urgently needed. International standards for disaster response by humanitarian agencies state that a minimum of 15 litres per person per day should be available to cover personal hygiene as well as drinking. Without it people cannot wash their hands, cannot wash their food and cannot wash their clothes, again contributing to the rapid outbreak of diseases and infections. The most obvious of these are diarrhoea-type diseases such as dysentery and also cholera, which has broken out before in Basra when the city has gone without clean water.

The fact that the city’s sewage system is close to collapse, after more than 10 years without any proper maintenance, can only make the position worse.”Unless something can be done very, very quickly, it will be a humanitarian disaster,” said Tor Valla, the chief water engineer of Norwegian Church Aid, which Christian Aid has provided with a mobile water purifying plant for work in Iraq.”People will become weaker and weaker as they are unable to keep food and their stomachs. And then people will die.”One plan is to fly six mobile units to Kuwait, with the hope they can be deployed to Basra next week while the failed plant is repaired.Mr Valla will be part of a five-man team, operating under the UN banner. “I can only hope our worst scenarios will not be a reality,” he said.The author is an emergency officer for Christian Aid. As US forces edged closer to Baghdad yesterday, their advance slowed by a sandstorm, the armoured battle in the open that would have suited US commanders failed to materialise No surprise there. The Iraqi forces protecting the capital – the “elite” Republican Guard divisions (although such terms are relative) – appeared to be digging in, to wait for the Americans to come to them It is a sound strategy. The Americans are either going to have to attack Iraq’s best regular soldiers in defensive positions, or halt short of the city. Sooner or later they may have to mix it with Iraqi infantry in the streets.

As an experienced commander said yesterday, there is a “density problem” In other words, not enough Allied troops. Cities with millions of people absorb soldiers like sponges with millions of holes. The Allies had hoped to avoid a Battle of Berlin in Baghdad.Although the Republican Guard largely escaped from the Kuwait theatre of operations in 1991, the mauling that their less well trained, equipped and supplied Iraqi army colleagues suffered at the hands of British and American forces will not have been lost on them.Forward defence, primarily west and south of Baghdad, is therefore an unlikely option. Instead, it looks as if the Iraqis will use a strategy of urban warfare in and around all their cities, towns and villages. This negates the technological advantages of the British, American and Australian troops.Three of the six Republican Guard divisions – the three armoured ones of 10,000 to 12,000 men each – are in the Baghdad area. While Iraqi army units are all reported to be at 50 per cent strength and lacking spares for half their vehicles, the Republican Guard are at more like 80 per cent strength. The Medina division, which was to the west and has, we are told, been attacked by US helicopters, is moving to the south.