Chapter 29 25 "Road to Death"

I withdrew.But don't forget: I'm coming back! — MacArthur We finally bid farewell to Amman, which had been disturbing for many days, at 4 am on March 15, and embarked on the journey back to Baghdad.Two full months ago, I was the last one to step out of Baghdad Saddam International Airport customs by my right arm, Lao Zheng, the Chinese ambassador to Baghdad and an alumnus of Peking University.Today, Ambassador Zheng led his team back to his hometown.Only three days ago, all foreign journalists, including CNN's Peter Arnett, were given 48 hours to leave Iraq.The future is uncertain, but I am very excited to have Ambassador Zheng personally lead the expedition.There were four cars in our group, and the one driving the road was a white Toyota from the Iraqi embassy in Amman, which was loaded with rice and white noodles, and ran far ahead.I took the second car, military attache Cao and military attaché assistant Xiao Li were also alumni of Peking University, so I didn't feel lonely all the way.The third car was filled with the ambassador and other entourage, and the last car was a 20-ton Mercedes-Benz truck, which was full of food and 400 boxes of mineral water.

The sun is right in front of us, and the highway from Amman to Luvished winds like the surging Volga River. This section is 292 kilometers long. I have run it twice, and today is the third time.As usual, there were layers of checks along the way, but they were much more polite than the previous two times, because the Chinese flag was planted on our car, and Iraqi diplomats cleared the way before, and the Chinese ambassador backed us behind. At 10:00 noon, arrive at the Luvished Border Guard Station and complete the exit formalities here.After crossing the 78-kilometer neutral zone, we will enter the Iraqi border.On the highway, more than a dozen 40-ton container trucks were waiting to pass the customs. A whole piece of white cloth was hung on the vehicle body, and large Arabic characters were written on it with a vermilion pen. Military officer Cao said it was "Arab Transport Association" and the transport was aid. supplies from Iraq.One of the white tool carts is particularly eye-catching, with a red cross painted on the body.When I asked, they were two French-speaking Belgian doctors who volunteered to deliver medicine to Iraq.Outside the border guard station, all the cars bound for Iraq were fully loaded, and even the roofs of the cars were piled full of food and gasoline, which were tightly tied with nylon ropes.All the cars are filled with gasoline here, and the spare oil tanks are filled to the brim, because Iraq has stopped supplying gasoline to citizens since the war broke out on January 17, and black market gasoline is 90 times more expensive than official gasoline.

At 10:30 we entered the neutral zone between Yoy.Two months ago, the International Red Cross built three refugee camps along the road in this area to accommodate Iraqi refugees. I came here to interview Peter Fierz, a representative of the International Red Cross here.But now the place is empty, only the Jordanian police in dark gray uniforms look after the empty ground.At the intersection, there is a pile of bomb skins and other explosive relics, all of which are the products of the US bombing of Iraq. They are gathered here to show people the "crime of the United States".One of them was quite new and big, painted with grass-green matte paint, and because of the speed of the car, I couldn't see whether it was the auxiliary fuel tank or the unexploded cruise missile.

At 11 o'clock, we drove into the Iraqi border. The majestic Iraqi Customs House stood proudly on the north side of the road, and weary soldiers could be seen everywhere.Taking advantage of the immigration procedures, I wanted to get rid of the urination I had been holding all the way, but I couldn’t find a toilet, so I asked the soldiers. They didn’t understand English at all, and I was so anxious that I went around in circles.In desperation, I unbuttoned my pants and imitated the posture of urinating. The soldiers suddenly realized, and with a wave of their fingers, I entered a small building.There is no distinction between men and women here, and the toilet is "overwhelmed with arrows", and there is no place to stand.I stood on tiptoe to see that it was hopeless to find a pure land, so I had to solve it on the spot. When I was proud, I whistled and looked around. I raised my head suddenly, and there were four large characters "Made in China" on the ceramic water tank of the toilet.A sense of national pride arises spontaneously, and all kinds of unhappiness along the way are also excreted.

When we returned to the car, we saw four Arabs loading flour on the roof of our car. They insisted on taking our car. No matter what we tried to stop it, it was useless. In the end, it was Ambassador Zheng himself who came out and yelled in Arabic, and they gave up. .According to the driver, these Iraqis came to Jordan to get food due to the shortage of food, and now they are going to transport it back to Iraq, but they did not expect to "hijack" the diplomatic vehicle.According to Iraqi law, Iraqis are not allowed to ride in mission vehicles. This group of Muslim brothers wanted to take advantage of it, but almost got into trouble.

At 11:30, we entered the territory of Iraq, and the road suddenly opened up, wide and flat, which was completely different from the narrow road in Jordan just now.Here are all intact expressways, two-way lanes have at least six express lanes, and traffic signs are also eye-catching. There are cement isolation devices and steel plate protective walls in the middle of the road, and parking lines and protective nets on both sides of the road.The neat protective net completely closed the expressway.The road is very quiet, no other vehicles can be seen, only our convoy is speeding at a speed of 100 kilometers per hour.Going forward, the median strip of the highway was removed and thrown on the sand dunes in the north of the road, forming a wide road more than 80 meters wide. Military officer Cao said that this could be used as a temporary airport for large aircraft to take off and land.Xiao Li reminded people to pay attention to their surroundings. People in this area are often robbed with guns.This expressway from the Yeoyi border to Baghdad is well-built, with an overpass every ten kilometers, like a golden line connecting the towns along the way, no less than the West German highway from Bonn to Cologne I have seen.

Military attache Cao Pengling was the son of Cao Jinghua, the director of the Russian Department of Peking University family. He had a high literary attainment, a profound family knowledge, and expressed his aspirations by seeing things.Military Assistant Xiao Li was in the same grade as me at Peking University. I was in the Department of International Politics and he was in the Department of Law. His brother-in-law, Chen Gang, was Bing Xin’s grandson and my photography friend.My friends living in Beijing lamented that the world is so small, the sea and the sky are so vast, and they travel hundreds of kilometers without knowing it.

When the car arrived near Rutba, a double-linked 23mm anti-aircraft artillery position with a camouflage net appeared under the overpass. The soldiers operating the guns wore helmets and lazily dozed in the sun.The high-voltage transmission lines on both sides of the road were scattered as if they had been cut by knives, and the huge wire towers were blown to the ground.The 40-ton oil tanker that was blown up on the road and the giant container truck turned over by the roadside can be seen from time to time.There are traces of the U.S. Air Force’s standard equipment 20mm Vulcan cannon on the road. A rocket hit the median strip in the middle of the road. The steel plate broke and twisted. A bus leaned on the roadbed. After the fire, the wind and rain, It has long been rusted and lost its original color.Our car tried its best to dodge the crater, but unexpectedly, it was still crushed on a piece of bomb skin. The right rear tire burst. The driver stepped on the brakes and rushed sideways for more than 100 meters before stopping.

Ambassador Zheng pointed to my nose and said, "Donald Duck, what nonsense are you talking about before you go out? Look at your car, first smashed the door, then let someone smuggle flour, and now you are setting fire to the wheel, all because of you!" I yelled at him: "I'm a lucky general. I broke 12 isolation piles half a month ago and it's all right! It's all because of you, Xiao Li, seeing the black cat last night!" Taking advantage of the opportunity to change the wheels, the ambassador, military officer Cao, Xiao Li and I ran to a large bomb crater nearby. The military officer picked up a piece of fish-shaped shrapnel and said that he wanted to take it home as a bonsai. I took a negative and said to the military officer: "I want to Submit this photo to Peking University's school magazine, and let Peking University see the bunch of things she has cultivated!"

When the car arrived at the Ramadi and Haditha overpass, it suddenly turned off the ordinary road. The driver said that the road ahead was completely cut off.The military attache told me that the West has listed Haditha as a chemical weapons base and is a key bombing target.Our convoy was walking slowly along a railway, and in front of it was a small formation station, and a row of spherical oil tank cars filled with unknown precious liquid was leaning against the platform.The station was not attacked, and a group of children played barefoot football on the sand in front of the station.At the intersection, a large tow vehicle was pulling two wheeled armored vehicles heading north, and the cannon on the armored vehicles pointed directly at the blue sky.In front of a giant Saddam statue, several Republican Guards stopped our way and asked us what we were doing.Military Military Officer Cao replied in Arabic: "Chinese Embassy!" A militiaman actually said in standard English: "Welcome to Baghdad!" Military Military Officer Cao said that this city is Anbar.

At 16:48, we slowly drove onto an old bridge over the Tigris River. The 57mm single-link anti-aircraft gun hidden in the bushes at the head of the bridge was clearly visible, and we had entered the outer suburbs of Baghdad.Rows of trees had been chopped off in half, exposing new white stubble, and someone was carrying the trunks home on a bicycle.There were soldiers everywhere, armed with live ammunition, veterans with red epaulets and militiamen with AK-47 rifles.People are constantly checking our documents, and we seem to be walking among thousands of pairs of eyes. The city was completely dark, and the soldiers standing guard at the intersection were so hungry that they asked us for Arabic flatbread.A small black face is covered with dirty beards, chapped lips, and pea-like eyes.The thin and thin hands are like cat's claws.It can be seen that the Arab brothers under the attack of the multinational forces are not as hungry as little ghosts. There is no water, no electricity, no gasoline in the embassy.The fuel tanks of all the cars in the garage were pried open and drained. We unloaded 20 tons of cargo in the dark, and each made a pack of instant noodles.Xiao Li, assistant to the military attache, and I, who are about 1.8 meters tall, shared a good night together on a single bed.In the middle of the night, I couldn't bear the humiliation and moved to the floor, and I slept until dawn. When I opened my eyes, I saw that Ambassador Zheng's driver Lao Wang and reporter Chen Lin had raised a brand-new five-star red flag over the embassy. The blue sky and white clouds were extremely bright.In the clear sky, the motor roared, and the routine reconnaissance of the US F-15 fighter jet was flying over Baghdad, deliberately dragging a long wake in the smoke layer, like a lead gray fly.