From:  Bob Keith - Cool Dadio Media - Dahuk, Iraq, 6:30 p.m., Monday 23 October 2006.

 

  One question I was asked quite often before I left for this trip to Iraq was, "Can you even go there - to a country like that?"  To my knowledge, the U.S. government does not forbid its citizens from going anywhere these days. They just put out plenty of travel alerts via various government Web sites. The burden of entry permission to any particular country is on that country.  It is kind of like that sign you see in restaurants in America,"we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone."  So it is, with entering another county. If they don't want you in, they will send you back at the border.  As far as America letting its citizens go to other countries, I believe the general tone is, "You can go where you want, but don't come crying back to us if you are kidnapped, shot at, or worse."  Ok, fair enough, I guess.  Some one out there may know a country you are absolutely forbidden to go to by our government, but I haven't been able to find one on the government Web sites.  

 

  The caveat to travel in a country where a great many people carry machine guns is to do a great deal of research on that country before getting there. And even then, assume it will not have been enough research.  

 

 The Kurdistan Region of Iraq, originally issued me an entry visa so I could visit there for about two weeks. The cost was about one Dollar. The real cost was in the taxi driver who acted on behalf of the government and took me through seven check points in two miles. That cost was 40 dollars.  I had to track down what they call a "Residence Office" here in Dahuk to get an extension on that original visa.  The office was only open it seems on one day in about seven because of the end of the Ramadan holiday season. My visa had expired during all the days the office was closed. Fortunately, I got to the office on the one day they were working and they gave me a week's extension to stay. No one seemed the least bit concerned the old visa had expired during the holiday. Nor, was anyone interested in the minor detail that the original visa was mis-dated 2005 instead of 2006.

 

  While applying for the visa extension I got to see their fledgling bureaucracy in action.  No computers.  Just clerks with stacks of paperwork on their desks.  It is a newer building.  It looks more like a two-story doctor's office than a government building.  It is on a strip of road that sports several new government buildings. The Iraqi flag flies no where in site - only the Kurdistan flag with the big yellow star in the middle.  The absence of the Iraqi flag every where up here is quite a symbolic jester.  People who study the "meaning of symbols" should be all excited.  Any way, I waited two hours and saw three different officials. The visa was re-issued. The only mention of "Iraq" was in the wording on the visa stamp. The whopping cost of the morning's rigamarole, one Dollar and 25 Cents.  I smiled thinking that at that moment, some taxi driver's ears where burning. 

 

End of message.

 

Bob Keith - Cool Dadio Media