Condi On the Run
Iraq is making so much progress that the "C-17A cargo plane equipped with antimissile technology" carrying Condi Rice had to circle for 40 minutes, because the Baghdad airport was being bombed again.
Once on the tarmac, she was put in body armor and surrounded by a gang of heavily armed anti-assassins from some special ops group or another, and then quickly shuffled from the C-17 to an Army chopper for a quick and dangerous flight to the walled, fortified Green Zone in the middle of Battlefield Baghdad. No way was Condi Rice going to risk the deadly airport highway. More hot insurgent action, after the jump.
She had a brief meeting with whatever hapless Iraqi is "president" this year, but the power went out, so they sat there in the dark. This week, 21 U.S. troops have been killed along with the usual bloody pile of Iraqi corpses. But Rice says the prime minister is really making progress now, because he finally fired 800 cops that were actually part of the Death Squads that actually run the streets. Progress!
Why the sudden Middle East jaunt? Two reasons: She was either handing out ultimatums and bribes to the regional lackeys because the Iran War starts October 21, or she was shuffled out of Washington to wait out the latest Woodward-9/11 revelations -- that she received and deliberately ignored and then perjured herself over the 9/11 warnings she got two months before the attacks.
Rice, in Baghdad, Insists That Iraqis Are 'Making Progress' [NYT]