IRAQ: Getting to the airport and leaving Baghdad was not without its problems, writes Michael Jansen
Since highwaymen attack at least four cars and convoys a day travelling to Baghdad on the western road, I decide to fly out to Jordan. Flying is not an easy option. There is, as far as I know, only one service prepared to carry journalists as well as employees of non-governmental agencies.
I have to track down the office in Amman, book and pay. Forty- eight hours before departure, I confirm with Amman so my name is given to the US military controlling Baghdad's international airport.
I do this standing on the sun- baked corner outside my hotel, speaking over a satellite phone's tenuous connection. Finally, I ring the company in Amman several times the night before the flight, the last call at 11 p.m., to find out the departure time which varies, depending on military traffic and security.
But 11 p.m. is curfew so my driver goes home, with instructions to come at seven in the morning, just in case the plane is set to depart earlier than noon, its usual time.
I am to be at the checkpoint on the airport road three hours before the flight. That road is dangerous. US troops regularly come under rocket-propelled grenade attack and small arms fire along this major route.
Motorised bandits, "Ali Babas", prey on passenger vehicles. My driver, Abu Ammar, and I set off at 8 a.m., provisioned with two large bottles of water for the wait at the checkpoint. Traffic is light and we arrive at the tailback by half past the hour.
Ahead of us are two bumper- to-bumper lines containing huge blue buses carrying airport workers, lorries loaded with equipment, cranes mounted on trailer beds, taxis filled with passengers, contractors involved in reconstruction and, as always, lorry-loads of dripping ice blocks to cool the drinks of the troops.
We wait. Along a third empty lane, military vehicles whizz by. Our line doesn't move. I fret.
A convoy of humvees and scout cars bracketing a lorry carrying two bound Iraqi men wearing undershorts, vests and and blindfolds sweeps along the third lane. Fresh political detainees to join the hundreds of top-ranking members of the toppled regime at the airport. Criminals are held at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.
We move forward a little and stop opposite a fading billboard proclaiming, "55 years of Iraqi Airways." Iraqi Airways no longer flies, planes parked here during the war were bombed or looted by US troops. We crawl up to another sign which reads, "Warning Coalition Checkpoint, Be Prepared to Stop." We stop.
A helicopter soars overhead. A private car jumps the queue. There is no supervision.
I walk up to the barrier. Three armed men in dark green uniforms and floppy hats are in charge. One is an American, the others don't speak English or Arabic. Rumour has it that they are Israelis, but they look like Nepalese, former Gurkhas recruited for security duty.
"I'm a passenger. I will miss my flight," I say in desperation to the American. "Go to your vehicle, maam, you'll make it." A man in the car ahead of mine remarks: "You should wear a hat. It's risky to walk in the sun without a hat."
I slip into my air-conditioned Chevrolet and take a drink of cool water. Abu Ammar waits for his to warm up. Many Iraqis think cold water makes them ill.
There is no order here, no rationalisation, no prioritisation, as they say. A plump man in a white shirt with a security badge pauses at my window. He checks on my flight, then instructs: "You go to the parking lot and wait for an escort to come and collect you. They come every half hour."
Annoyed by the inefficient arrangement, I respond: "This is the worst checkpoint I have ever seen. Why don't you have separate lines for lorries and passenger vehicles?" He retorts: "Maam, we have to be secure."
We inch forward until we reach the barricade. "No cell phones beyond this point," says a sign attached to the central column supporting the movable arm which blocks the road. A female security official runs a metal detecting wand over my body, Abu Ammar is frisked, the car is checked and we turn into staging area jammed with other vehicles. Waves of finely powdered dust envelop the car.
After half an hour, a humvee comes to take us to the departure area. On our right stretches the fence of an estate of Uday, eldest son of ousted President Saddam Hussein, slain on July 22nd.
Trees along the road lie where they were felled, others are dying of thirst. We speed through the vast airport complex, originally named for President Saddam, now the main US military base in Baghdad.
The departure lounge is in the old VIP reception area. At the check-in desk, a US soldier looks at my passport and enters my name in his computer, another snaps my photo. "Security," he explains. The place is furnished with carved settees and armchairs fashioned in the style called "Louis Hamstache" (for French King Louis XV). The cupboards and tables are "Empire." The carpets are Chinese of recent manufacture.
The eccentric tastes of the old regime do not worry Iraq's new masters. I chat to a young Red Cross worker flying on the agency's plane to Erbil in the north. An influx of people from incoming flights crowds the hall.
We wait, we drink the worst- tasting water in Baghdad from the cooler. The half-dozen passengers for Amman assemble, and we have our luggage weighed on a bathroom scale. Since there are no immigration formalities, we process through a warehouse to the tarmac.
Our plane, an 18-seat Beechcraft, awaits, stair lowered. I climb aboard and take a seat with a view of a propeller. In the cockpit, the pilot and co-pilot await clearance, lights on the instrument panel winking. The plane begins its rush on the runway, jerks upwards and twists round into the sky. As she slips beneath the belly of the plane, I bid Baghdad farewell with a twinge of regret.
The Iraqi desert becomes a pink blur.