MISSION: IMPROBABLE 219Originally built on seven hills, the city of Amman is now spread out over
almost twenty hills and as many wadis, or valleys. Most of Amman’s resi-
dential buildings are of the same sand color and are limited to four stories.
The low, undulating skyline is occasionally punctuated by exotic domes
and minarets of the city’s many mosques. I never tire of the grand views
of the sprawling, hilly city from my hotel room balcony. Unlike “artificial”
Dubai, an admittedly fun and easy city to visit, Amman is an authentic
Arab city and, along with Damascus and Muscat, one of my favorites in
the Middle East.
During the final two days prior to our late May departure for Baghdad,
the skies around Amman began to slowly fill up with dust. Winds were not
especially high, and it did not yet amount to a blinding dust storm, at least
not the kind I had grown up with back home. But I felt something ominous
was slowly and steadily developing.
At 4:00 a.m. on the designated morning, we met Imad and several
of his AK-armed Iraqi colleagues on a quiet side street outside the Sher-
aton Amman. We loaded up several white Chevrolet Suburbans with our
gear and other supplies, then wound our way out of the darkened city
of Amman, heading northeast for the Iraqi border. It was now getting
harder to breathe as dust continued to pour into the city and the winds
were picking up. What I did not realize then was that a monster sandstorm
had been building up near Amman, it was headed east, and it would make
getting to Baghdad later that day next to impossible.
The drive on the two-lane highway from Amman to the Iraqi border
crossing at Tureibil was largely uneventful. We stopped for shawarma at
the last small town on the Jordanian side of the border before crossing into
Iraq. A miles-long line of parked trucks waiting to enter Iraq reminded me
of similar scenes during the Balkan wars.
By late May 2003, military hostilities may have temporarily ended,
but chaos had broken out across Iraq. In its rush to overthrow Saddam,
the Bush administration ignored military and intelligence experts who had
warned about the need to be prepared for the postwar scenario. Scenes
of Iraqis looting while US soldiers stood helplessly by were common-
place. American soldiers were trained to fight a war, not secure and run