The airport offers a taste of what is to come. A curious combination of vaguely Orwellian security (managed by a British company) and chaos (managed quite generously by Iraqis) greets me. Various fixers, drivers, boys with carts offer their wares.
An Indian engineer selling water purification systems and I share a taxi to the main airport checkpoint. There I am met by Showket, a young man who works for the Journalistic Freedom Observatory (JFO), and Ahmed, a 21-year-old English student who has been chosen as my translator.
