Volume 53, Number 6 · April 6, 2006
Baghdad: The Besieged Press
By Orville Schell
'Ladies and Gents,' the South African pilot matter-of-factly announces over the intercom, 'we'll be starting our spiral descent into Baghdad, where the temperature is 19 degrees Celsius.' The vast and mesmerizing expanse of sandpapery desert that has been stretching out beneath the plane has ended at the Tigris River. To avoid a dangerous glide path over hostile territory and missiles and automatic weapons fire, the plane banks steeply and then, as if caught in a powerful whirlpool, it plunges, circling downward in a corkscrew pattern.
Feature, 7614 words
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