Word: baghdad
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...thought about this joke a few days later on my first plane ride into Baghdad International Airport. The descent, once famous for its harrowing, evasive corkscrew maneuver, was peaceful. We looped around the airport, above long rows of tan army tents at camps Liberty and Victory, delayed only by a small dust storm. In the row behind me, Iraqi gentlemen in blazers laughed the whole way. A few aisles up, a mountainous, tattooed contractor dozed in headphones...
...Westerners are not the only ones eyeing Iraq. Last March, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became the first Iranian leader to visit Baghdad. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is also expected to travel to Iraq soon, to renew once strong economic and commercial ties between the two countries...
...German Foreign Minister's trip to Iraq came just a week after French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Baghdad. "My coming here is to tell French companies: the time has come. Come and invest!" Sarkozy declared, explaining to his host, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, how French investment would be mutually beneficial. "We seek cooperation in the economic field, energy, rebuilding, and to help the police, security and Iraqi military forces, as well as restoring the international position of Iraq," Sarkozy promised. "We want to encourage all European countries to come. It is in Europe's interest to extend...
...ties that were severed by the international embargo of Iraq before the war. British and Italian firms, meanwhile, long to kick-start contracts they had from 2003 to 2004, when an explosion of insurgent violence forced most of them to abandon the country. (See pictures of life inside a Baghdad prison...
...That reality was on show during the French President's Iraq visit. Maliki used Sarkozy's presence and words of support to respond to comments by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that Washington would be "more aggressive" in demanding political reform from Baghdad. Delivered as Biden left for an international security summit in Munich, the sentiment apparently annoyed the Iraqi Prime Minister. "The time for putting pressure on Iraq is over," Maliki said during a Baghdad press conference with Sarkozy. That must be music to Old Europe's ears...