British and US tourists take a holiday vacation in Iraq

The group of tourists included five British tourists, two Americans, and a Canadian. They spent their last two nights of their seventeen day long trip in the Sheraton in Iraq. They started their trip touring Irbil in the north and traveled all the way to the holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala. On their last day, they visited the Baghdad parade ground installed by Saddam Hussein. They said that a lot of their time was spent at checkpoints. On their way to Kerbala from Najaf, they spent a total of six hours in checkpoints. Despite this, they said they felt welcome. The majority of people did not feel endangered by the conflict going on in the area. The archaeologist from London said that she was not nervous because she remains optimistic, and thinks nothing could happen to her. She did however admit that she heard an explosion or two, and said she would rather die in a car bombing then in a hospital geriatric ward.
The ministry of tourism in Baghdad says that they would like to fix their bad reputation. They would like people to stop thinking about Baghdad as a terrorist danger, but rather as a tourism destination. They commented that they would like to see a turn around similar to the turn around Northern Ireland experienced in tourism.