Tamer El-Ghobashy and Mustafa Salim write for The Washington Post:
On a muddy berm on the edge of a wheat farm about 100 miles south of Baghdad, a dozen flatbed trucks carrying some $14 million in precious cargo slowly line up before dawn.
At first light, men with sticks and hammers begin banging on the cages stacked on the back of the trucks — rousing 14,000 pigeons into a frenetic and unruly chorus of deep coos and grunts. Moments later, at the blast of an air horn, the cages are opened in unison and the birds take flight, the force of 28,000 wings generating gusts of wind as the pigeons hurtle in a single direction: to Baghdad.
Six months of practice runs and strict conditioning culminate in a launch that lasts less than a minute. But the birds carry with them the hopes of men who have spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours training them.
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