Speeding to the Airport

Some folks in the comments here have claimed that speeding on Route Irish (the road from Baghdad to the airport) at up to 100 mph is routine. That doesn't seem quite right. There must be a fair amount of military traffic, and there are not very many military land vehicles that can operate at that rate. Also, there must be a lot of Iraqi trucks and other vehicles not capable of those speeds. So there are some speeders, but probably not right into the teeth of checkpoints. Best description so far (linked by Instapundit and LGF today) is Austin Bay's column. The Charles Johnson post here links to a story with quotes from Berlusconi stating that the Italians had coordinated the release of Sgrena. They don't mention the ransom. Definitely not included is a statement claiming that passage through the roadblocks had been coordinated in advance.