Wednesday, December 24, 2003

"CARLSON: Well, actually, I didn't deal with a lot of soldiers... We stayed in a house in Baghdad and saw almost no soldiers... In the drive from Kuwait into Baghdad, I didn't see a single American soldier from the Kuwait border all the way until I got to the CNN bureau at the Palestine Hotel. Driving around Baghdad, which we did a lot every day, I didn't see any, none, not one American soldier. It was really striking... The green zone is essentially the neighborhood where Saddam Hussein kept his palaces, wide streets, lovely area... And it's essentially an American zone, heavily fortified, hard to get in, tanks around the perimeter, parts of it anyway, and many American soldiers there, and also the CPA... And that's...very different than the rest of Baghdad, which, again, there's not an obvious American presence. I saw one American flag, one, when I was there for the entire week. And it was at the Baghdad International Airport on the fourth floor in the bar. And that was it." From a CNN transcript. (thanks Nico).