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A blogger's first days in Baghdad

"I often feel a sense of deja vu here in Iraq as it reminds me of time spent in Moscow and Kiev in the years before and after the Soviet Union fell apart.

One of the first things I see from my seat on the plane as it spirals into Baghdad is the white roof of Abu Ghraib, the prison notorious as one of Saddam Hussein's torture centers and now infamous for photos of U.S. soldiers humiliating Iraqi detainees. I don't find the corkscrew landing so hard to take, certainly not worse than the steep descent of planes favored by Soviet pilots when I was an exchange student in Kiev more than 15 years ago.

"Welcome to Baghdad International Airport" the sign on the side of the terminal reads as I climb down the stairs onto the tarmac and into the dry heat. I don a flak jacket, put on my head scarf that a lady at the duty free store in Amman taught me how to wear and hop into an armored car. We ride down the dangerous airport road over speed bumps the size of logs and past checkpoints where soldiers eye us warily."

So writes Kim Gamel of AP in this piece [read it in full here] on Editor & Publisher.

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