"In Baghdad, Capital Vistas Gradually Shrink With Insecurity" NY Times

[bunkerbuster1]

Next time someone whines about how the "mainstream media isn't reporting all the swell stuff that's really happening in Eye-Rack," point them here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/24/AR2005112401051_pf.html

On our first trip, in mid-September 2003, the State Department entourage and diplomatic press corps stayed for two full nights at the legendary al Rashid Hotel, the high-rise once heavily bugged by Saddam Hussein's security goons. Iraqi vendors in the hotel arcade sold military paraphernalia and souvenirs from the old regime. Medals that Hussein once bestowed on his troops went for 10 bucks -- or less, if you bargained enough. Back then, we could tool around the Iraqi capital. With a New York Times colleague, I walked through the concrete barriers down the lonely lane that linked the protected Green Zone to the rest of Baghdad. U.S. troops stationed along the route didn't stop us.

<...>

My second trip to Baghdad, on July 30, 2004, some 15 months after the fall of the city, was a secret. This time, the press corps traveling with Powell couldn't report it until after we'd landed. We traveled from the airport to the Green Zone in Black Hawk helicopters, with U.S. troops perched in open windows on both sides manning machine guns that fire as many as 4,000 rounds per minute. The route was so dangerous that we were all given flak jackets and helmets for the short trip.

This time, we didn't stay even one night. The al Rashid had come under rocket fire in October 2003, when then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was visiting. The attack had killed one American soldier and wounded 15 other people. The hotel was off-limits even for journalists traveling with Powell. When I pressed the case, a diplomat offered to escort me through a new barricade between the convention center and the hotel, which was just across the street. Unfortunately, she didn't have clearance for the hotel. I didn't get in.

<...>

My latest trip to Iraq, on Nov. 11, 31 months after the fall of the capital <...> the bubble shrank even more. No roaming the Green Zone. Not even a stop at the convention center. The press corps, including veteran war correspondents, was sequestered in Hussein's old palace for most of the seven-hour stay. We were discouraged from wandering the palace and were provided escorts to go to the bathroom.

[Gyre]

1. Yep. Sounds like the Iraqis got things under control.

Just in time for us to "pull out". War crimus interuptus I guess. Never a good thing unless you're Iraqi and want to reclaim your contry from asshat US puppet/collaborators. Lets just hope the bloodshed which results splashes directly on the doorstep of the WH. But I'm thinking that MSM will care even less for that truth than they do about who Paris is blowing these days.

Gyre