NO one knows how many unexploded bombs and shells lie beneath the azure waters of the Suez Canal to threaten dredging operationseven if the Egyptians and Israelis should come to terms on reopening the waterway. The known obstacles, however, are relatively few: the sister passenger steamers Mecca and Ismailia, scuttled on orders of Egypt's late President Nasser at the start of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war; part of a pontoon bridge; two small tugs sunk downstream from the city of Ismailia; and the wreckage of a barge twelve miles north of Suez. The Egyptians calculate that they could reopen the 103-mile...
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