Jason Van Steenwyk, over at Iraq Now, recounts the sights as his convoy moves into Kuwait from Iraq.

There were hundreds of children lining the road as we drove out, begging for food. Soldiers were throwing MRE's out of their humvees as we drove by.

Here and there, you'd see a veiled woman sitting by the side of the pocked and pitted, intermittently paved road.

The houses, though average by Iraqi standards, were fairly destitute by anything approaching western norms.

If the people had cars at all, they were practical wheels: a beat up pickup truck on its last legs. Not much more.


Five minutes south of the berm, in Kuwait, it looked for all the world like a posh Palm Springs highway.

Almost every vehicle you saw was a high-dollar SUV or Mercedes sedan.

The streets were well paved, and level. Streetsides were impeccably clean. Streetlamps worked.

............

Both countries are blessed with a wealth of natural resources.

But only one had Saddam Hussein as a ruler for decades.
And only one had to struggle under more than a decade of sanctions--however porous they were.

Two hundred meters.