Breaking: Members of Congress fired upon in plane over Iraq

By: beachmom
Published On: 8/30/2007 9:05:42 PM

This is awful.  Three senators -- Martinez, Shelby and Inhofe plus Rep. Cramer were on the plane.  I am relieved that they are all okay.  The Washington Post reports:
A military cargo plane carrying three senators and a House member was forced to take evasive maneuvers and dispatch flares to avoid ground fire after taking off from Baghdad on Thursday night.

...

Crew members apparently communicated to the pilots as they saw the initial RPG fired from the ground, Cramer said. After the first burst, the pilots maneuvered aggressively and set off flares used for drawing incoming fire away from aircraft.

Once the flares lit up the sky, lawmakers said, two more RPGs were fired as the pilots continued maneuvering.

Martinez said he quickly put back on his body armor.

"We were jostled around pretty good," said Cramer, who estimated the plane had ascended to about 6,000 feet. "There were a few minutes there where I wondered: 'Have we been hit? Are we OK?'"

Nevertheless, so say conservative Republicans, "the surge is working".  Sigh.  When will the nightmare end?

Comments



Gee (loboforestal - 8/30/2007 9:17:22 PM)
Senators are having a tough time getting out airports.  First in Minneapolis, now in Baghdad.  Maybe they need to spend a little more time in Washington going over bills instead of off on adventures.


RPGs tend to "surge" as well. . . . . (buzzbolt - 8/30/2007 9:32:22 PM)
Keep track of future congressional visits or, better still, see how many future congressional visits are canceled!


I don't see the point of their visits (vadem - 8/30/2007 10:16:13 PM)
Surely, they could not see enough for themselves to be meaningful in terms of making a decision on how things are going.  Obviously, if that kind of armor is needed to walk through the market, or if such dangerous evasive measures must be taken to fly around, WHY GO?  Do they think their constituents expect it?  Does it prove they know what they are talking about?  Like Webb said, its a dog and pony show.  Period.  I say man-up and enlist if you're so all-fired interested in making an appearance.


NOW THAT WOULD BE PROGRESS!!!!!! (MohawkOV1D - 8/30/2007 10:30:30 PM)
Three empty SENATE seats.  September surprise, surprise surprise!!!  So close.  Can't buy a good pretzel RPG launcher these days.


SecDef Gates Being Marginalized? (FMArouet - 8/30/2007 11:12:45 PM)
Let's see how this incident affects the debate on the "surge" and funding.

Every day brings new signs pointing to a seething power struggle in Washington, where the remaining rational civil servants seem to be trying to stanch the madness oozing from the top.

Note some emerging reporting that SecDef Robert Gates is being frozen out of the loop, while the Bush/Cheney White House seems to be pressing on the accelerator as the car heads toward the edge of the cliff.

Secretary of State Rice has already been marginalized and has practically disappeared from the news. There is virtually no visible trace that she is still a real player in whatever struggle is going on inside the Beltway. Today's WaPo op-ed piece by establishment apolotist David Ignatius on "Bush's Lost Iraqi Election" smelled very much like a hit piece dictated by the Cheney/Addington team to discredit both Secretary Rice and Speaker Pelosi in one crude stroke.

From GAO (today's WaPo story by Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks) to the Embassy in Baghdad it is clear that serious and honorable civil servants are sufficiently concerned about the gathering portents to thrust important reports containing real analysis--rather than standard Cheney/Addington/Bush self-serving spin and happy talk--into the hands of a few remaining trustworthy journalists.

The corporatist MSM, as usual, is largely silent or simply amplifies and replays the spoonfed Cheney/Addington agitprop on the "existential" danger posed by Iran (a line straight from AIPAC and the neocons).

Where are you Speaker Pelosi? Where are you, Senator Reid? Maybe you need to cut short your vacations and try to offer some adult supervision. This. Is. Serious.

Once again--just as was the case last spring--this moment is beginning to look like August, 1914 or September, 1939. Can anyone stop the madness?



Very good question! But the answer is NO. (MohawkOV1D - 8/30/2007 11:31:33 PM)
"Once again--just as was the case last spring--this moment is beginning to look like August, 1914 or September, 1939. Can anyone stop the madness?"


In Related, But Unreported (Sui Juris - 8/31/2007 9:40:22 AM)
news: soldiers in the region are getting fired on - and hit - every day.