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Notebook

Baghdad notebook: "Things were better in Saddam's time"

Notes from uneasy Baghdad

5 July 2014

9:00 AM

5 July 2014

9:00 AM

In the passport queue at Baghdad airport, my heart sinks. This place vies with Cairo for the title of most venal airport in the Middle East. Our luggage is minutely examined by the Mukhabarat, or secret police, then customs. Early morning becomes mid-afternoon. Our papers (scrupulously in order) lie unattended on a desk.

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Paul Wood is a BBC correspondent. His Panorama documentary on Isis will be on BBC1 later this month.

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