Jolie's Baghdad Visit Goes A-List
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Note to world leaders: Next time you need instant access to foreign
dignitaries and top military brass, forget the usual protocols. Just
send in Angelina Jolie.
Hollywood's globe-trotting leading lady swooped into Baghdad on Thursday
to highlight the plight of Iraqi refugees, gaining an audience with Gen.
David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Iraqi Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki, the American Embassy said.
On her mission as a U.N. goodwill ambassador, Jolie also met with Iraqi
migration officials to stress that there needs to be a coherent plan for
the more than 2 million internally displaced Iraqis who are beginning to
trickle back to their homes amid a recent lull in violence.
"There's lots of goodwill and lots of discussion, but there seems to be
just a lot of talk at the moment," Jolie said in excerpts of an
interview aired on CNN.
Jolie mingled with American troops during lunch at a dining facility in
the heavily guarded Green Zone, which houses the embassy and Iraqi
government offices. She grabbed a red plastic tray at the mess hall,
collected her lunch and sat at a long banquet table to eat _ her fork
tines down, of course _ as flashbulbs from soldiers' digital cameras lit
up the wall behind her.
During the CNN interview, Jolie said the fate of Iraq will have an
impact on the Middle East for years to come.
"And a big part of what it's going to affect," she said, "is how these
people are returned and settled into their homes and their community and
brought back together and whether they can live together and what their
communities look like."
http://tinyurl.com/yqeqlj
[
My prediction: In 25 years or so, Angelina Jolie will be Secretary of
State under President Chelsea Clinton.
]
--
Steven L.
Email: sdlitvin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
the NOSPAM before replying to me.
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