THE rare business traveller to Baghdad airport does not just walk out of departures and hail a cab to town. Waiting at the half-deserted airport will be a small convoy of armoured vehicles and Western gunmen to escort him on what has become indisputably the most expensive, dangerous taxi ride in the world.

The distance from the airport, on the southwestern edge of the capital, to the relative security of the coalition’s green zone compound in central Baghdad is only about 15 miles — but the fare is at least £2,750.

At roughly £183 a mile, and running the gamut of roadside bombs, suicide car bombers, snipers and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, the airport road is a high-speed dash where your driver is more likely to ask your blood type than if you had a pleasant landing as your aircraft corkscrewed in to avoid surface-to-air missiles.

“You could jump in an Iraqi taxi with a gun and get there for $20,” one security contractor said. But with armed kidnap gangs marauding in the capital, and Westerners sold for about £150,000 to Islamist terrorists, he did not recommend it.

Hiring an armed team is the only way for the security conscious contractor to make it to the city. For a few thousand pounds, the visiting Western contractor will have at least two cars and four Western former military bodyguards, usually American, South African or British, toting a mixture of MP5 submachineguns, M16 rifles and or AK47 assault rifles.

The client will ride in one vehicle: the other is known as the “gun car” or “chase car” riding shotgun to attack potential assailants. One Western security official recommended a convoy of three armoured vehicles with accompanying gunmen to ensure as safe a journey as possible.

The danger is reflected in the soaring cost of security, running at up to £6,000 a day for a close-protection team. At least 10 per cent of each reconstruction project budget goes into security. Officials say that it is often double that.

Baghdad airport is the hub of the US-led coalition’s military activities, while the green zone, a blast-walled complex of former Saddam palaces serving as Western embassies and Iraqi government buildings, is the heart of the civilian administration.

Since the early days of the insurgency, guerrillas have been trying to sever this key artery.

The road is pitted with craters where rebels have planted bombs. The US Army has cut down all the palm trees along the route, officially known as the Qadisiyah Expressway, to stop insurgents firing rockets from their cover.

Smoking Humvees, the standard US army workhorse, are a common sight by the roadside, while the motorist occasionally passes the charred hulk of a suicide bomber’s car that has exploded while trying to ram a military convoy.

A large road sign to remind departing convoys of the need for vigilance stands at the exit from the green zone and asks: “Are you ready for the next attack?”

Travelling in a British military convoy in two white “soft skin” four-wheel drives recently, The Times was told by the Scottish NCO in charge that “if contact is made and you are disabled, we will leave the kill zone and seek back-up”.

To civilian ears, that sounded horribly like: “If you’re shot we will drive away and if it’s safe later on we’ll come back and pick up your body, if it’s still there.”

Iraqi businessmen who can afford the £350 ticket for the 80-minute flight to Jordan try to travel incognito up the highway, although that carries its own risks.

Driving along the highway in an Iraqi civilian car this week, The Times followed two white GMC Suburbans as they tore past a slowmoving convoy of US armoured vehicles.

Speeding along at 100mph, we got too close to the rear vehicle: the back door opened and a thick-set man in a safari jacket leant out to point his Kalashnikov at our windscreen. We dropped our speed dramatically. One Iraqi traveller arrived at the airport flustered for a recent flight: the Range Rover in front of him had been caught in heavy traffic just before entering the highway.

Two opportunistic gunmen stepped up, shot the driver in the leg and threw him out before driving away in his car. At the airport itself, the traveller has to navigate a major checkpoint before reaching the check-in.

Beside the statue of Abbas ibn Farnas, the Iraqi Icarus with his exaggerated wings, travellers are frisked by Gurkha and Iraqi private security guards, then made to wait for a bus as the crump of mortars echoes from the huge airfield.

There is no small sense of relief when the aircraft circles to a safe height and heads westwards.

PEAK RATES

Four tickets, priced at £21,700 each, are available to accompany Sir Ranulph Fiennes 3.29 miles from the Mount Everest base camp to its peak. Price per mile: £6,590

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