tourists trickle back to Iraq

Most foreigners here since Saddam’s ouster in a 2003 US-led invasion have worn army fatigues and carried guns — but more recently there has been a trickle of camera-toting travel pioneers.

“Iraq was in my top three countries,” said the visitor to Babylon, 50-year-old Californian Ileana Ovalle, who was excited to see the millennia-old Mesopotamian site.

“This is where civilisation started,” said the passionate globetrotter with some 40 countries under her belt. “I think too few people understand how…