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From: "hengist" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Baghdad Airport "Capture" Never Happened Robert Fisk: Reports of airport assault premature
04.04.2003
8.00amSADDAM HUSSEIN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT -So where are the Americans? I prowled the empty departurelounges, mooched through the abandoned customs department,chatted to the seven armed militia guards, met the airportdirector and stood beside the runways where two dust-coveredIraqi Airways passenger jets -- an old 727 and an even moreelderly Antonov -- stood forlornly on the runway not far froman equally decrepit military helicopter.
And all I could hear was the distant whisper of high-flyingjets and the chatter of the flocks of birds which have nestednear the airport car park on this, the first day of real summerin Baghdad.
Only three hours earlier, the BBC had reported claims thatforward units of an American mechanised infantry divisionwere less than 16km west of Baghdad -- and that some UStroops had taken up positions on the very edge of theinternational airport.
But I was 27km west of the city.
And there were no Americans, no armour, not a soularound the runways of the airport whose namesake, inposter form, sat nonchalantly in the arrivals lounge ina business suit, cigar in hand. Even more astonishingly,
there was no sign of the 12,000 Republican Guardswhom the US division expected to fight.Indeed, Saddam Hussein International Airport lookedas if it was enduring an industrial strike (let us notconceive of such an event in Saddam's Iraq) rather thanan imminent takeover by the world's only superpower.
Was it true, the Iraqi minister of information was askedat his daily 2pm press conference (11pm NZT) - a routineinstitution of usually deadly tedium - that the Americanswere at the airport?
"Rubbish!" he shouted. "Lies! Go and look for yourself."
So we did.
And, alas for the Anglo-American spokesmen in Dohaand the US officer quoted on the BBC, the Iraqi ministerwas right and the Americans were wrong. But it's a goodidea to take these things, if not with a pinch of salt, thenat least with the knowledge that there are always tworeasons for every decision taken in this violent, ruthlessland.
Sure, the Americans had been caught lying again - as theywere about the "securing" of Nasiriyah more than a weekago - but was that the only reason journalists were permittedto visit Baghdad airport? We saw no Republican Guards -just as the Americans have themselves somehow failed todiscover the 12,000 Republican Guards supposedly facingthem.
Indeed, what I found most extraordinary was that thereappeared to be absolutely no attempt to block the roadinto Baghdad from the airport.
Save for a few soldiers on the streets and a police squadcar, you might have thought this a mildly warm holidayafternoon.
Was their some kind of trap about to be sprung? Werethe Americans being lured into the gentle, palm-fringedhighway into town because, unknown to all of us, therewas in fact some real armour hidden away in the great
fields on the western banks of the Tigris?All day, I had asked myself about the supposed Americanassault-to-come on Baghdad.
Where were the panicking crowds? Where were the foodqueues? Where were the empty streets? True, the motorwayto the airport was a spooky, lonely journey.
But the centre of Baghdad was livelier than for many days.
The city authorities have put more of their Chinese double-decker buses back on the streets - normal service, as theysay, has been resumed - and the railway company claimedits trains were still leaving for northern Iraq.
At lunchtime, I dropped into the Furud Takeaway for mydaily fix of chicken "shish-taouk", tomatoes and green beans.
It was packed with Shia families, the ladies in black chadors,the men largely bearded, chomping through giant "mezzes"of "hoummus" and "tabouleh" and lamb and rice.
The television was showing an Iranian channel, a musicalin the Persian language. Iranian TV has two Arabic channelswhose signal can be picked up without a satellite dish - andmany Baghdadis trust their news service more than that ofKuwaiti or Saudi television.
Near the Rafidiyeh Bridge, in a canyon of traffic, I caughtsight of a middle-aged man staring at the great monumentto Saddam's "victory" in the 1980-88 war with Iran.
At the base of a column, iron, helmeted soldiers stoodbehind iron sandbags, firing an iron machine-gun at theirPersian enemies, an iron soldier throwing an iron grenadein the same direction.
There is this monument to military victory in Baghdad,a monument to the "martyrs" of that victory - perhaps halfa million of them - and a monument to the unknown soldierof that same war.
Ex-prisoners asked for a monument to their suffering - ineight years, there were 60,000 of them - but their requestwas officially turned down.
Was that to emphasise the humiliation of surrender?Is this a lesson for the young Iraqi soldiers of today whosecombat troops I saw on the road south of Baghdad onWednesday, jumping from their trucks in steel helmets
and flak jackets? Each night, I can hear the drumbeat ofexplosions and cluster bombs west of the city.Who is dying there? The Chief of Staff of the RepublicanGuards' Baghdad Division -- the same division whom theAmericans are supposedly incinerating - announces that hehas suffered only 17 dead and 35 wounded.
Every morning, the newspaper Qaddisiyeh carries a detailedbattle report from the front lines - always supposing there isa front line - which includes unit numbers and brigades.
On Wednesday, for example, the newspaper informed itsreaders that the Americans failed to cut the Kut to Baghdadhighway, that Iraqi forces destroyed 14 US tanks in theprovince of Diwaniyeh, that the 704th, 424th and 504thBrigades of the Iraqi army's 3rd Army Corps prevented aUS thrust near Suq el-Shuqh.
And so on and so forth.
Whether this represents anything like the battles whichthe Iraqis believe they are fighting will await the inquiriesof historians.
Certainly, no one here takes the total of tanks and planesdestroyed too seriously, although the Iraqis inevitablypopped up yesterday to "confirm" the American admissionof an F-18 aircraft shot down over the country.
Thus another long day, peppered with the rumble of farawaydetonations, closed at Baghdad airport last night, dusk fallingover the grimy terminals with their painted exhortations of"Down, Down America" and the airport's director, WafaAbdullah Jabbouri, announcing that "there is no-one at the
airport, you can see it's completely safe, even the workersstill turn up each day." No doubt they do.And while there's a large complex of buildings blown topieces by missiles a mile away and the airport radar systemis out of action after an early raid by American or Britishjets, Mr. Jabbouri appeared to be correct.
Had the Americans found themselves miles away on theedge of the old RAF airbase at Habbaniyeh, one wondered,and confused it with the airport outside Baghdad? Had theysent a patrol up to the far side of the Saddam airport for afew minutes, just to say they'd been there? Back in 1941,a German patrol briefly captured the last tram-stop on theline west of Moscow, collecting the discarded passengertickets as souvenirs - and then got no farther.
But few here believe the Americans cannot bash their wayinto Baghdad if they really want to. After all, Napoleon gotto Moscow in the end.
I guess it's the same old question. The Russians could holdStalingrad because they loved Russia as much as they fearedMarshal Stalin.
Does that equation of patriotism and dictatorship apply tothe Iraqis? Messers Bush and Blair must hope it does not.
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Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. <A HREF="">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
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