RUSH: Mr. Snerdley said, “How did you get in there? How do you get to Kabul in Afghanistan?” Well, you know, I wanted to fly EIB One straight in there but you can\u2019t do that. It\u2019s still considered a war zone. There are really no commercial airports. I mean, there is a commercial airport in Kabul, but basically is run by the coalition forces. It is essentially a military base. Afghanistan used to have a couple airlines that do come in and out of there. If you think flying commercial in this country is a task — and it is; I mean, there\u2019s no question — you ought to see what Afghanis have to do to get on one of their commercial flights. They actually stand outside in like a fenced cage with no top to it. They stand outside for hours before they\u2019re even up to the ticket counter which is also outside, and then they wait outside because the terminal has totally been taken over by coalition forces which is run by a three-star colonel from Turkey, who I met. He\u2019s one of the most extraordinary men that I have ever met in my life. Kazim Ondul is his name, and we had a little chance to talk with him while one of our flights out of there was late. He gave us a conference room and served us some Turkish coffee. He\u2019s a brilliant politician, but he\u2019s a great man, fun to talk to.<\/p>\n
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A very young guy, he has chosen this as his career, loves America, loves everything about it. He told about taking his kids to Disney World in Orlando. It was really eye opening. Anyway the way you get in there, they wouldn\u2019t let me take EIB One in there — and, frankly, we didn\u2019t want to take it in there because when I first met with government officials who gave me the low-down on how you get in and I ran the question of my EIB One going in…<\/p>\n
“Well, you actually don\u2019t want to do that. What you do, you go to do you buy and from there you take a UN plane in.” I said, “Oh, that\u2019s wonderful, a UN plane? What kind is it?” They said, “It\u2019s an Ilyushin.” I said, “That\u2019s a Russian prop jet!” They said, “You can\u2019t go in in jets because jets provide a heat signature for anybody that might want to fire a surface-to-air missile.” When\u2019s the last time that happened? “Oh, it\u2019s been a long time. That hasn\u2019t happened since October 2003.” So we fly this rusting Ilyushin in there? “Yeah, you go in at altitude and you corkscrew down for the landing so as to not present a big target to anybody that might to want take a shot.<\/p>\n
I said, “When\u2019s the last time one of these planes was shot, shot at?” “As I said, October 2003.”<\/p>\n
“Okay, we\u2019ll do that, an Ilyushin. UN, huh?” Yep, UN plane. Humanitarian Airlines or some such thing is what it\u2019s called.<\/p>\n
So I went and look although Russian Ilyushin, and you wouldn\u2019t want to get on one. None of us would want to get on a Russian Ilyushin. Anyway it turned out to be not a Russian Ilyushin. It was an American DC9. So I said, “Wait a minute! Hey, hey, hey, pals. This is a jet. This has got a heat signature that a Stinger surface-to-air missile could hit.” “Well, no, that doesn\u2019t happen.” They changed their tune on that. “That doesn\u2019t happen. We\u2019re not worried about that. Jets are going into Kabul.” Okay, what about mine? “Well, you don\u2019t want to do that. No overflights of Iranian airspace.” So the way you do this, you leave — and it\u2019s the same way coming out of there — you leave Dubai and you fly down the Persian Gulf and around Iran, and you go way south, then you turn up toward Pakistan and you actually go into Kabul from the west. It\u2019s about 3-1\/2 hours. In a jet it\u2019s 1500 miles. If you could go straight there from Dubai over Iran, you could do this in an hour, maybe an hour and a half — and coming out is the same thing. We didn\u2019t come out on the UN plane. There was an Army general from Bagram Air Force Base coming out so we hitched a ride with him on his Citation. We actually had so much baggage.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>There were six us. A Citation 5, it holds maybe six people as you see, but it\u2019s not intended for people that got a week\u2019s worth of luggage with them. I thought, “We\u2019re going to have to strap this on top of the airplane and make it look like we\u2019re a bus,” but no, they managed to get all the luggage in there. We were sardined in there, but it was about 3-1\/2 hours back to Kabul, then aboard EIB One and back. The total trip time was 23 hours. So left there at, it was local time ten o\u2019clock…<\/p>\n