Four Britons to Join First Tourist Trip to Baghdad

[Hissyspit]

Source: Telegraph UK

Four Britons to join first tourist trip to Baghdad

Four Britons will be among the first tour group of westerners to risk a holiday in the Arab areas of Iraq for six years when they fly to Baghdad in March.

By Nick Meo
Last Updated: 12:04PM GMT 15 Feb 2009

They will be accompanied at all times by armed guards and forbidden from leaving their hotels at night or wandering off alone during their two-week tour by minibus of a dozen sites including Baghdad, Babylon, and Basra. Surrey-based Hinterland Travel, which has organised the tour, ran trips to the country during Saddam's rule and then briefly in October 2003 before violence made it too dangerous.

Geoff Hann, the company's managing director, said he now was the right time to go back. "We're seeing the beginnings of a new Iraq," he said. "They want normality, and tourism is part of that. If we make this trip and show that it is possible to do it successfully, that will contribute to normality." The first, tentative return of tourists to what has been one of the most dangerous countries in the world is being seen by Iraqi officials as a vote of confidence in its improved security over the last year. There are still car-bombings and assassinations, but the level of violence has fallen dramatically since its peak, when thousands of Iraqis were being killed each week.

- snip -

Mr Hann said the party would be avoiding the most dangerous places like Fallujah and Mosul. "Iraqi friends have said there will be places where you won't be welcome, and if we encounter that, we will move on. People who come on this trip must understand the risk," he said. "But Iraqis say that things are getting better day by day and in Baghdad it is changing fast."

- snip -

The trip will be made despite a standing warning from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office against travel in nearly all of Iraq, including Baghdad, because of the high risk of terrorism. The british embassy in Baghdad points out that terrorists, insurgents and criminals are likely to target organisations or individuals of western appearance and describes road travel as "highly dangerous".

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/4621871/Four-Britons-to-join-first-tourist-trip-to-Baghdad.html

[MrSlayer]

1. You would have to be utterly insane to take that tour.

I'm hardly a coward and I have a healthy adventurous streak but I would not be signing up for this any time soon.

[rpannier]

2. Remember to see all the big sights

George Bush Square
Bush Plaza
The Statue of George Bush
The George Bush Hotel
George Bush Boulevard
And remember to speak to all the little Children (boys and girls) who have been named George in his honor

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. What. The. Hell.

:crazy:

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Not the first - there was an Italian a few days ago

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/world/middleeast/07falluja.html?ref=world

They weren't sure what to do with him.

[Lucky Luciano]

5. Wow! Interesting article re the Italian guy...I appreciate a good adventure,

but that is pushing it...maybe for his next trip he will go to Mogadishu? Italians do not blend in as well there of course - at least in Iraq, if he is a more swarthy Italian and keeps his mouth shut, people might not notice...but not so in Somalia!