Iraq's new venture: Holidays in the Garden of Eden

8-1-08
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraqs-new-venture-holidays-in-the-garden-of-eden-882635.html

It is a country that has become synonymous with suicide bombings and sectarian killings, abductions and refugees – the savage legacy of one of the most emotive and controversial wars of recent times.

Yet the government of Iraq insists all that will soon be in the past and that the cradle of civilisation, the land of Babylon and the Garden of Eden, will become a paradise for foreign tourists.

With the surge in US troop numbers curbing much of the violence in recent months, and the ragged economy buoyed by petrodollars, the Iraqi government maintains that the time has come for a concerted push to attract visitors under the slogan "tourism not terrorism".