At first I thought this was good news...

... then I read the article.

Baghdad's highway of death takes on new life
by Bryan Pearson
Wed Mar 26, 2008
BAGHDAD (AFP) - The sale in Baghdad of peaked caps boasting "I survived Route Irish" have slumped -- reaching the capital's international airport is no longer the perilous dash it used to be, and the slogan is losing its relevance.

Hey, this sounds encouraging!... Then I read the rest of the article.

"We are turning it into an impregnable security corridor. No one will be able to penetrate it to be able to plant roadside bombs," Colonel Asadi told AFP, while inspecting one of the endless checkpoints set up along the four-lane highway.
...
"We started out with 150 men and our numbers have since increased to 425," said the round-faced colonel, sitting at his desk in a dilapidated roadside building, midway between the highly secured Green Zone and the airport, that now serves as battalion headquarters.

Patrolling continues day and night, starting each morning with a foot patrol. This is followed by continuous sweeps through the area by police armed with AK-47s and Austrian Glock pistols, riding aboard Chevrolet Lux 4WD pickups mounted with Russian DKC machine guns.

Iraqi and US troops have also felled the date palms that once lined the road, cleared away refuse, moved guardrails and cut back vegetation to make it difficult to conceal roadside bombs.

Now, according to Colonel Hamid, the aim is to clear the dense neighbourhoods through which the airport highway passes of Al-Qaeda fighters.
[emphasis added]

Yes - the highway is now safe. We've turned it into a heavily fortified "impregnable security corridor", with wide "No-Man's-Lands" flanking it on either side, patrolled constantly by a very large force... and we're about to complete the devastation by destroying any remaining neighborhood through which it passes.

We've established "security" in Baghdad by transforming neighborhoods into walled enclaves, surrounded by concrete barriers.

This is not my image of a secure, stable country.

Stop the madness!