Iraq's relationship with the United Nations is under scrutiny, but there appears to be little prospect of sanctions being lifted or eased.
Mr Keifah Na'maan of the Iraqi Oil Company cuts a bleak figure as he rummages through the ruins of one of his communication stations in Abu-Qhasib.
"We have rigged up a temporary system for relaying messages, but it won't stand up to much," he says. "We are trying to export a million barrels of oil per day through this pipeline. You just cannot do it with a piece of string."
Around him are the ruinous effects of yet another Allied air strike on Iraq, this one involving a laser-guided bomb dropped from one of hundreds of American aircraft stationed in the Gulf.
Silhouetted against the Shatt-alArab waterway, the station is one in a chain that controls the flow of oil to Iraq's offshore loading platform in the Gulf.
"The Americans are trying to destroy our ability to produce oil. How can I conclude anything else?" says Keifah, a Western-educated engineer.
During a week when three different components of Iraq's oil infrastructure were hit by US and British warplanes, it is perhaps difficult to disagree.
After a lull of more than a fortnight Iraq's long-running conflict with the United States and Britain is back on again in earnest. Except that this time one side is fighting a large-scale war on another continent.
Iraq may now calculate that it is time to challenge its old foes to see just how stretched they are by the aerial war in Yugoslavia.
The United States Northern European command has admitted it has had to pull warplanes away from duty in the skies over Iraq to help NATO operations in Yugoslavia.
"This does not in any way affect our ability to patrol the no-fly zones and to enforce Iraqi compliance," a spokesman said.
The US State Department spokesman, Mr James Rubin, put it more graphically: "We can chew gum and walk."
But Iraq may be ready to hit back. In Baghdad surface-to-air missile (SAM 7) batteries have been visible for the first time in six months. These mobile units, the most sophisticated weapon Iraq is allowed under UN sanctions, are usually kept well hidden, but were easily spotted close to an army barracks in central Baghdad.
On the road between Basrah and Baghdad security is very tight and tanks and armoured cars are on constant patrol.
Iraq has also shown an increased willingness to use whatever weapons it still possesses. US jets narrowly escaped disaster last Saturday after Iraqi SAM missiles were fired at F/A-18 Hornet fighter aircraft.
US pilots later destroyed missile sites located some 160km south of Baghdad in the town of Diwaniya. Iraq claimed that two people were killed and nine injured in this confrontation but, as before, the authorities were slow to allow reporters to inspect the site.
Meanwhile, Iraq's economy has continued to deteriorate, and the prospect of an early end to the crippling sanctions has become more remote.
A Brazilian official, Mr Celso Amorim, who oversees the United Nations efforts to assess Iraq's adherence to UN resolutions, has tried to woo the Baghdad government with the prospect of an easing of the embargo, but to no effect.
Iraq has criticised the work of the three panels set up after the December bombing to assess Iraqi compliance. Mr Amorim has remained optimistic, saying he takes "comfort from the fact that they have not rejected" the panels outright.
Leaked reports from the most important of the three groups indicates that the committee investigating Iraqi disarmament will recommend a virtual reinstatement of the inspection and monitoring regime, long criticised by Baghdad.
The Unscom weapons inspectors were barred by the Iraqi government after the December bombing and following revelations that the UN body was used by the United States for spying.
The panel's report now provides "the enemies of Iraq with the pretext for future aggression", Iraqi officials told the UN.
Iraq continues to argue that it no longer has any prohibited weapons. Some countries, notably France and Russia, are inclined to agree, but Britain and the United States maintain that President Saddam Hussein's regime is capable of producing dangerous weapons.
Iraq may also have preserved a larger number of weapons and more war materiel than many Western analysts have hitherto estimated. At the Al-Rashid airfield where the Iraqi authorities allowed journalists to observe pilgrims leaving for the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, I counted 15 large military helicopters, all apparently in working condition. Some were hidden under concrete bunkers, others were on the apron ready for action.
A number of dummy radar antennae scattered around the facility showed just how seriously the Iraqi army took the threat of air attack.
On the shore of the Shatt-alArab waterway, looking across to Iran, possibly the most disturbing monument in Iraq is located. It is not another saluting Saddam or a statue of a smiling Saddam, but a long row of statues of army officers twice as large as life-size and constructed after the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
They gaze across the strategic waterway at another old enemy, Iran. Almost all the figures are pointing at Iranian territory, as if to say: "It is all your fault." Or perhaps "We will get you". Or even "Your time will come".
It is a potent image and one which reinforces the belief that Iraq will never forget. If the country ever recovers from the catastrophe it is now living through, there may be a new group of monumental army officers pointing an accusing finger at the United States.