Tourism Returns to Iraq

As the BBC put it, "They could be the cast of an Agatha Christie thriller—Adventure in Mesopotamia, perhaps: a civil servant, a businessman, a retired sub-postmaster, a former U.S. probation officer and an archeologist from London." These intrepid travelers spent 17 days touring Iraq, from Irbil in the north to Basra in the south, and hitting a variety of archeological sites in between. None of them seemed particularly concerned about security, odd given that a) they were visiting Iraq and b) Hinterland Travel, the British tourist company, opted to skip the 25 guards the Iraqi authorities recommended in order to save the cost of boarding them. But then, you have to respect the gumption of tourists like 77-year-old British archeologist Bridget Jones, who said she'd rather be killed by a car bomb than die in a hospital ward.