On Flying Phantoms

Work proceeds apace in Bakrajo, Iraq, in the north of the country now under
American and British air cover. A meandering boundary makes Bakrajo only an
hour's drive from Kirkuk, a large, rich -- by Iraqi standards -- city within
the region of the country controlled by Saddam Hussein. Bakrajo, in the
Kurdish north, is thus very near the Iraqi army front lines.

All these geographical facts are in themselves unremarkable, except that the
Kurds of Bakrajo are renovating an old Iraqi airfield. The Iraqi army built
this airstrip for its own use. They abandoned it in 1991 when forced to
withdraw from the region. The odd thing is that the Kurds have no planes.

James Clark

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(c) 2003 Millennium Relief & Development Services, vol. 2 no. 31
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