DATE=10/4/1999
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=REPORTERS NOTEBOOK-ROAD TO BAGHDAD
NUMBER=5-44406
BYLINE=SCOTT BOBB
DATELINE=BAGHDAD
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Iraq has been cut off from the rest of the
world for nearly a decade, isolated by economic trade
sanctions and a ban on virtually all air travel.
Commercial flights to Iraq have been cancelled and
most of the country's air space is in a no-fly zone
enforced by United States and British warplanes. As a
result, people going to Iraq must travel overland from
Amman, Jordan's capital. It is a one-thousand-
kilometer that takes 12-hours or more across the
desert. Correspondent Scott Bobb made the trip
recently and has some pages from his notebook on the
road to Baghdad.
TEXT: It is midnight and most of Amman is asleep when
we load up the heavy, U-S made (Suburban) station
wagons. A throaty rumble comes from the eight-
cylinder, seven-liter engines as we motor out of town
and into the desert.
Once on the highway, the drivers accelerate to
cruising speed, 160-kilometers per hour, but the road
wagons are steady on their large tires. Many
passengers sleep. Others settle back to watch the
desert roll by under a rising crescent moon.
When we make our first stop, it is still the middle of
the night. But the roadside restaurants in this
village are wide open and well lit, serving tea and
coffee. Shops are also open, selling water, cookies,
cigarettes and other sundries that until recently were
not readily available in Iraq.
Another few hours on the moonlit highway and we arrive
at the border post. It is just before sunrise and the
sky is turning from black to ever-paler shades of
blue.
The guards at the Jordanian post check and stamp our
passports. It takes a half-hour. We then enter the
no-man's land separating the Hashemite kingdom from
revolutionary Iraq. At the Iraqi post, the guards
show us into the V-I-P lounge, which is well-appointed
with carpets and couches and dominated by a wall-size
portrait of The Leader, President Saddam Hussein.
/// OPT /// As our passports are processed, the
guards check our equipment. Mobile (cellular)
telephones are not allowed and are held at the post
until we leave Iraq. Computers are allowed, but the
modems to communicate with the outside world are not.
Satellite telephones are sealed and may only be opened
in Baghdad with government permission. Some radios
are also impounded. The guards do not explain why,
but we are later told that radio scanners, like mobile
and satellite phones, can be used as homing devices
for enemy missiles. But many believe the real reason
is to restrict communications with the outside world.
/// END OPT ///
Several-hours later, we complete our formalities,
undergo one last passport check and we are in Iraq.
The first thing the drivers do is pull into a gas
station, conveniently located just outside the border
post. Why? Gasoline in Jordan costs nearly one-dollar
per liter. But in Iraq a dollar will fill up the
entire tank. At two-cents a liter, this is the
cheapest gas in the world.
What was a narrow, two-lane road in Jordan, now
becomes a four-lane superhighway, complete with
guardrails and emergency shoulders. However, it seems
unfinished. There are virtually no road signs, and
the concrete bridges that pass over the highway are
connected only to tire tracks in the desert.
/// OPT /// As the sun rises higher in the sky, the
monotony of the desert induces a fascination. Drivers
often fall asleep, hypnotized by the endless brown
expanse and the asphalt pike pointing toward the
horizon.
There are scores of tanker trucks carrying Iraqi oil
to Jordan. In Iraq they have their own highway, which
runs like a black stream of oil, to our side. The
tankers are called rolling bombs, because every now
and then, one of them crashes and explodes, turning
the vehicle into a roadside bonfire. /// END OPT ///
It is late morning when we cross the Euphrates River
and enter the ancient land of Mesopotamia. There are
more settlements now, some large villas, and palm
trees laden with bright-yellow dates.
We arrive in Baghdad shortly after noon, faces burned
by the sun and the wind, and thinking only of a shower
and a rest. The traffic, the pedestrians, the hustle
and bustle of the big city jar the nerves, after the
empty expanse of the desert and the road to Baghdad.
(SIGNED)
NEB/SB/GE/RAE
04-Oct-1999 10:51 AM LOC (04-Oct-1999 1451 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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