Tuesday, December 23, 2003

Tucker in Iraq

This is an interesting perspective:

CARLSON: Well, actually, I didn't deal with a lot of soldiers. I went over with Kelly McCann, CNN security analyst and a wonderful guy, a wonderfully tough guy. We did not stay in the green zone. We stayed in a house in Baghdad and saw almost no soldiers.

I interviewed precisely one, Jim Light (ph), who lives in Germany, a wonderful guy. But 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 in Baghdad. Driving around Baghdad, which we did a lot every day, I didn't see any, none, not one American soldier. It was really striking.

BEGALA: Did you ask why? Well, first off, explain to the folks the green zone vs. the rest of Baghdad.

CARLSON: The green zone is essentially the neighborhood where Saddam Hussein kept his palaces, wide streets, lovely area. I can't -- I'm not quite sure how big it is, some hundreds of acres. It's where the monuments are, the crossed swords, the things you see on television. 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, the Coalition Provisional Authority, which is creating a new government there.

And that's a relatively secure area, not totally secure, but 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.