From Jim Gilliam's blog archives
The most expensive taxi ride in the world:

November 22, 2004 10:55 AM

It costs about five grand for a westerner to go the 15 miles from Baghdad airport to the center of town. What does that buy you? "Two cars and four Western ex-military bodyguards, usually American, South African or British, packing MP5 submachine guns, M16 rifles and/or AK47 assault rifles. The client rides in one vehicle at speeds averaging 100 mph, while the other, called the 'gun car', travels close-by, looking out for potential assailants." Keep in mind insurgents will pay $300K for your head.

More from the archive in Business, War and Peace.

The most expensive taxi ride in the world: (11.22.2004)

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Read the 2 comments.

Paul:

This sounds like a good story idea for a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. All it needs is a love interest. How about this:

A spoiled, beatiful female journalist arrives in Baghdad and has to be escorted by a hunky ex-special forces mercenary. They run into an ambush on the way to the Green Zone. She whines continuously, while he plugs about three to four dozen baddies. They run smack into a terrorist group which has the actual *real* WMD's which Saddam loyalists kept under wraps all this time. The mercenary blows up the headquarters of the baddies, but not before some of them get away and load a nuclear warhead onto a ship.

They stow away at the last minute. They're discovered, semi-tortured (the stuff that only leaves minor scars). Our hero manages to break free and start the ship sinking. Then, he kills *all* of the baddies and has to keep the ship from sinking. He radios in and a carrier task force comes to retrieve and disarm the nuclear device (carrier stays at a safe distance).

Now it turns out that there is another warhead, and our special forces guy has to go *back* into Iraq and take down the remnants of the baddies. He goes in with all his merc buddies. They're the only ones who can do this job in the time they have before the baddies set off the nuclear device over Iraq's major oil fields, which would bring about a global depression.

They take down the baddies in the oil field, and our hero, having seen how the original bomb was disarmed, is able to disarm the second one.

The female journalist/love interest follows along the whole way, so she can get her exclusive. Whining through the first half of the movie, and then falling in love the second half.

Mon Nov 22 2004 6:15 PM


Cici:

I don't think it's worth a trip to Iraq (or anywhere for that matter) if the taxi ride is more expensive than the plane ticket. [/sarcasm]

Mon Nov 22 2004 6:29 PM


Jim Gilliam
Jim Gilliam

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