Archives » Monday, November 03, 2008
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Newsweek
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Nov 3, 2008 08:04 PM
By Lennox Samuels
If it seems a little … premature, that’s because it could well be. As
American and Iraqi military forces continue their drive to pacify Iraq
by battling remnants of Al Qaeda and rump militias incongruously called
“special groups,” teams of local workers spend their days on a
multi-million-dollar project to repair and beautify a stretch of road
in Baghdad.
This is not just any road. It is the highway from the city center to
Baghdad International Airport, once described as the most dangerous six
miles in the world. For more than two years beginning in 2003, the
airport road was a virtual killing field, a place many hardened war
veterans feared more than the prospect of vengeful insurgents on the
battlefield. Driving along the highway routinely involved trying to
escape an ambush, roadside IED, car-bomb attack or a suicide bomber
waiting at an on-ramp. The road was an emblem of the ferocity of the
Iraq war itself.
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