In dribs and drabs

摘要

It was a stirring sight. A score of buses piled with luggage and decked with Iraqi flags set out from Damascus on November 27th, carrying hundreds of Iraqi refugees for the overnight journey to Baghdad. The Iraqi government, which paid for the convoy, says there will be many more. Improved security in the capital brought about by the "surge" of American troops, it claims, has prompted a mass homecoming of Iraqis who fled the sectarian death-squads that once terrorised the city.