Word: descente
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Sister Benedetta smiles politely when I joke that many of our fellow passengers will be calling to their maker when the plane begins its hellish descent. To avoid being shot down by Iraqi insurgents, the pilot must stay at 30,000 ft. until the plane is directly over Baghdad airport, then bank into a spiraling dive, straightening up just yards from the runway. If you're looking out the window, it can feel as if the plane is in a free fall from which it can't possibly pull out. I've learned from experience to ask for an aisle...
...window seat was a muscular, heavily tattooed Polynesian ex-commando who spent an hour telling me of his life as a mercenary in a succession of South Pacific island nations--stories that often ended with his punching, stabbing or shooting somebody. When the Fokker began its steep descent, he began whimpering to Jesus and grabbing my forearm so tight, I felt my palm go cold from lack of circulation...
...know what the destiny of Iraq will be." For a second, I thought I recognized the expression on his face. It's the one I had seen on the faces of my fellow passengers on the flight into Baghdad--that mixture of fear and resignation, just before the descent into hell...
...this occasion, to my relief, the guy next to me is a fellow journalist and veteran of the nightmare landings. Even so, as we begin the descent, I move my hand away from the armrest. Looking over my shoulder, I see a familiar expression on the faces of my co-passengers: a mixture of fear and resignation. Sister Benedetta is staring up at the ceiling, her lips moving in prayer. I reach into my shirt pocket and surreptitiously rub my fingers over that laminated picture. When the Fokker's wheels hit the tarmac, 50 people sigh in unison, 50 stomachs...
...ally in the war on terror - must remain in doubt." He stressed that all was not lost, but his prescription for reversing the slide to civil war was a reminder of the growing challenge facing coalition forces in stabilizing Iraq. "If we are to avoid a descent into civil war and anarchy," Patey warned, "then preventing the Jaish al-Mahdi [the Mahdi Army of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr] from developing into a state within a state, as Hizballah has done in Lebanon, will be a priority...