Safety hazards ‘In times of danger, the water table of the storage lake should
be lowered to less than 150 metres to limit the consequences of a possible
destruction of the upper part of the Dam and of the resulting inundation,
if e.g. bombs should be dropped on it, such as were used in World War II.’
(Arafa, Minister of Affairs of the Sadd el-Ali, 1965: 119)
Hartung (1991: 80) considers this measure absurd and completely unsuit-
able for really precarious situations, since only a maximum of 605 million m3
of water daily can be let out, so that it would take up to 200 days for the
water table to drop from 170 or 183 m to below 150 m. According to him
the dam is not safe from military attack, and the power station, which is an
open construction, is particularly easy to destroy. Egypt, situated in the centre
of the Near East trouble spot, is especially vulnerable here, as could be ob-
served during the Gulf War of 1991, when it was reported that Iraqi rockets
stationed in the Sudan were targeted at the High Dam since Egypt had sided
with the USA in that conflict. The dam might also be a target for terrorists.
Since what happened to the Twin Towers in New York on 11 September 2001,
it has become clear that Egypt, too, is vulnerable to such an attack.