> this report includes the details that the offices of the cruise ship operator were also destroyed.
I find it remarkable that there *is* a cruise line operating out Beirut. U-Hauls, yes. One-way flights to almost anywhere else, sure...
Operating out of a Hezbollah controlled port, I am convinced that they also helped Iranian smugglers and other assorted bad guys with travel and logistics.
However, they are not above taking State Dept money as well. Thanks to Herakles, I found a Getty image with the following caption:
American evacuees disembark the Orient Queen cruise ship, Thursday, July 19, 2006, in Cyprus after an eight-hour journey from Lebanon. About 1,000 Americans were aboard the ship, the first large group of U.S. citizens to be evacuated from the war in Lebanon.
Packing 1,000 folks on-board a ship that holds about 300 passengers is what one does in a war zone. But all of them were eager to get out of Beirut that day.