Corkscrew Over Baghdad (Baghdad International Airport woes) [View All]

Corkscrew Over Baghdad
Iraq’s main airport looks pretty, and remains pretty darn empty
By Rod Nordland
NEWSWEEK

Oct. 27 issue — U.S. Army Sgt. Kenneth Kratman from Fredericksburg, Va., is giving the security brief as his convoy gets ready for the 20-minute run to Baghdad International Airport (BIAP). It’s bad enough, he tells his men, that guerrillas are “daisy-chaining” explosive devices along the highway. Now there’s a new tactic: they follow up the explosions with small-arms fire. “If the first vehicle is hit,” he says, “I’m in the second vehicle and I’ll ram you and push you 100 meters ahead. Take cover and wait for the Quick Reaction Force.”

MINUTES LATER THE convoy barrels down the Airport Expressway in midmorning at 90 miles an hour, weaving through traffic. Kratman drives his Ford Explorer SUV with one hand and keeps his .45 automatic pointed out the window with the other, leveling it at any Iraqi he sees. A Latvian soldier is riding shotgun with an AK-47 poking out. This time the convoy clears the main checkpoint before the airport without incident. But Kratman makes no excuses for his precautions: he has already lost one buddy to an ambush in Baghdad, and he’s been shot at twice himself.

Pilots coming into BIAP have just as daunting an approach. They stay at a relatively high altitude, then bank hard and come down in what’s called a corkscrew landing. That’s because people have been trying to shoot them down. According to security reports by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), assailants fired missiles at military aircraft 21 times as of August—always missing, probably because they were too far away. Even some of the larger planes, like DHL’s daily Boeing 707 cargo flight, spiral down immediately over the well-guarded runways. “You should see them put that thing on its wing,” says Scott Custer, partner in Custer Battles (no kidding), a private American security company that guards the civilian airport. “You wouldn’t think a 707 could do that.”

The United States is hoping that a new U.N. resolution, which authorizes a multinational force and sets some guidelines for fostering a democratic government in Iraq, will help spur international action to rebuild the country. But the key for progress, everyone agrees, is better security. And nothing in Iraq is as emblematic of the Coalition’s successes and failures than Baghdad International Airport.

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Last week Terminal C was all prettied up, but also pretty darn empty. Even the few incoming passengers weren’t allowed to visit the duty-free shop.

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http://www.msnbc.com/news/982172.asp