[Icelander]

For reasons entirely unconnected to lost cities in the sand, ineffable ancient ruins and mysterious craters where unimaginable catastrophes buried whole cultures in the mythic past, I was wondering how desolate, remote and impassable the Iraqi desert is.

Does it compare in any way to the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia or is it merely a diet desert; actually home to fairly decent traffic in compact cars driving around smuggled cigarettes, alcohol, weapons and other goods?

What kind of vehicle do you need to traverse the trackless parts of it; where no checkpoints of any kind exist and borders are esentially unenforcable?

Are there traditional bedu ranging around in it, moving with the grazing, even betweeen national borders?

Are there parts where an ancient ruin of a city could plausibly still lie undiscovered, or is it too widely traversed for that?