would have to go through some security -- that the CIA would
have to do some check on me. I found that all you have to do is
buy a plane ticket, land and get off the plane and say, "I am
here to see Baghdad". The officials in Iraq asked "Are you with
some NGO? Are you with the Red Cross? You must be with the UN,
you have dreadlocks." I was like, "No, I'm a tourist." They kind
of looked around and said, "I don't know if we have a stamp for
a tourist visa". They asked a couple of people and they came
back and they stamped my passport and said, "Go in man, you're
the first tourist we had here since the war started."
- hip-hop artist Michael Franti, from an August 2004 interview
about his June 2004 trip to Iraq and Israel.
Submitted by: Mike Krawchuk
Nov. 10, 2004
