Iraqi Insurgents Tragically Fail To Kill U.S. Lawmakers
Iraqi insurgents nearly killed three Republican senators and a Democrat from the House, for good measure, as the Americans attempted to flee Iraq on Thursday. GOP senators Richard Shelby, James Inhofe, Mel Martinez and Alabama Representative "Robert" E. "Bud" Cramer were finishing their vacation in Baghdad when missiles and rocket-propelled grenades were fired at their C-130 cargo plane.
The pilots "maneuvered aggressively and set off flares used for drawing incoming fire away from aircraft" as the four lawmakers bounced around in terror.
In other words, it was the usual congressional visit to Iraq, where American lawmakers are comically dressed in full body armor and quickly shuttled between the dangerous airport and the fortified Green Zone while mortars and missiles explode all around and the power goes out and car bombs kill Iraqis and helicopters crash and death squads roam the wrecked streets and four million people have been forced out of their homes.
Tragically, not a single member of Congress has been killed in Iraq, although the occupation has cost the lives of 3,737 American troops, 297 coalition troops, more than a thousand U.S. contractors, 7,391 Iraqi police and guardsmen and some 655,000 civilians.
Inhofe's plane fired on in Iraq [Tulsa World]
Plane Carrying Lawmakers Attacked in Iraq [CQ Politics]