IRAQ: Welcome to Saddam International - no queues and no planes, as Lara Marlowe discovered on an eerie visit before last night's assault
No, absolutely not. There were no US or British soldiers near the airport, the Information Minister, Mr Mohamed Said al-Sahaf, insisted at his 2 p.m. briefing yesterday. The Americans were "on the move everywhere, a snake moving in the desert", he said. "They hold no place in Iraq."
Yet an hour later, the BBC was reporting that the US 3rd Infantry Division was "within 10 km of Baghdad" and that "some units are reported to be taking up position on the edge of Saddam Hussein International Airport, west of the city".
The Iraqi and US-British versions were clearly irreconcilable. Who to believe?
If they were telling the truth, why not take us there? a handful of journalists challenged Iraqi authorities.
And so we headed off, with exploding cluster-bombs rippling along the horizon, for the 25-km journey west of the capital, to Saddam Hussein International Airport.
In the late afternoon traffic, there was not a sign of panic or mobilisation; no troops or armour massing. Only a queue at a petrol station. Could the Americans really be on the outskirts of the city?
Traffic vanished as we approached the airport. A barracks-like compound to the left had been bombed out. A grinning soldier in camouflage and red keffiyeh manned the concrete chicanes, leaving his heavy machine- gun unattended.
"Welcome in Saddam Hussein International Airport", said the sign at the entry, in English, over his portrait.
There'd been a half-hearted attempt at digging in airport vehicles around the Iraqi airways terminal. An old Ilyushin airliner sat beside the runway, covered in desert sand.
At international arrivals, I was greeted by Capt Faris Rajah, a giant of a man with a black moustache and beret, twirling a Kalashnikov the way one would a pencil.
Capt Faris was laughing. "There are no Americans here, no British," he said. "Only Iraqis. Come in. Would you like to look for them?" The advance units of the US army were not in arrivals, nor departures, not in the first-class restaurant, nor the shops. I forgot to look in the toilets.
The only US presence yesterday afternoon, the omnipresent presence, was that of jet aircraft, so far above us we could not see them, too loud to be forgotten.
The airport director general, Mr Moaffak Abdullah Jabbouri, hasn't seen an incoming flight since March 19th. "The radar was shot up on the first day of the war. The Americans haven't come here; they will not come here."
He's not so certain about bombardments, and has stored a half- dozen brand-new airport escalators from Germany, still wrapped in white plastic, under the cement overhang of the arrivals area.
Last week's sandstorm swept into the terminal, and the sand crunches under foot as you head for the baggage section. This is a ghost airport, perhaps soon to be a battlefield, or a scene of conquest. Not a single plane is listed on the flight board, and I see at most a dozen employees.
The airport looks totally undefended, I remark to Mr Jabbouri. "I cannot answer this question," he says.
We are taken to the top of a ramp outside, with a vista of the runways, service buildings, fire engines. There's not a hint of a tent or humvee, though three kilometres away I can see one of Saddam Hussein's palaces; he must hate getting up early to catch a flight . . .
Off to one side are three pyramids, probably missile-launchers; the only obvious defences in this eminently strategic place. Could it be a trap? Is the entire place mined? Is there some devious plan behind it?