arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)
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Reports of airport assault premature by Robert Fisk(posted by Guido) Friday April 04, 2003 at 11:34 AM |
"So where are the Americans? I prowled the empty departure lounges, mooched through the abandoned customs department, chatted to the seven armed militia guards, met the airport director and stood beside the runways where two dust-covered Iraqi Airways passenger jets -- an old 727 and an even more elderly Antonov -- stood forlornly on the runway not far from an equally decrepit military helicopter."
SADDAM HUSSEIN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT - So where are the Americans? I prowled the empty departure lounges, mooched through the abandoned customs department, chatted to the seven armed militia guards, met the airport director and stood beside the runways where two dust-covered Iraqi Airways passenger jets -- an old 727 and an even more elderly Antonov -- stood forlornly on the runway not far from an equally decrepit military helicopter.
And all I could hear was the distant whisper of high-flying jets and the chatter of the flocks of birds which have nested near the airport car park on this, the first day of real summer in Baghdad.
Only three hours earlier, the BBC had reported claims that forward units of an American mechanised infantry division were less than 16km west of Baghdad -- and that some US troops had taken up positions on the very edge of the international airport.
But I was 27km west of the city.
And there were no Americans, no armour, not a soul around the runways of the airport whose namesake, in poster form, sat nonchalantly in the arrivals lounge in a business suit, cigar in hand. Even more astonishingly, there was no sign of the 12,000 Republican Guards whom the US division expected to fight.
Indeed, Saddam Hussein International Airport looked as if it was enduring an industrial strike (let us not conceive of such an event in Saddam's Iraq) rather than an imminent takeover by the world's only superpower.
Was it true, the Iraqi minister of information was asked at his daily 2pm press conference (11pm NZT) - a routine institution of usually deadly tedium - that the Americans were at the airport?
"Rubbish!" he shouted. "Lies! Go and look for yourself."
So we did.
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referentie? by jdb Friday April 04, 2003 at 01:01 PM |
waar kan ik het originele artikel aub? Hoe kan ik weten of dit effectief van Robert Fisk is?
dank, J.
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referentie by guido Friday April 04, 2003 at 02:51 PM |
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Hihihi! by Cécily Friday April 04, 2003 at 04:00 PM |
Donc si j'ai bien compris, les Américains disent qu'ils se sont emparés de l'aéroport, info qui défile sur MSN par où je passe avant d'arriver sur Indy, et qu'ils l'ont fait en combattant d'arrache-pied contre des milliers de Gardes républicains irakiens, et il n'y a pas un Américain ni un Garde républicain à l'aéroport désert? C'est quoi tout ça? Faudrait demander aux Russes, ils ont peut-être une explication.