"YOU'D NEVER HAVE THOUGHT THEY'D GET THIS FAR"

A reporter returns to Baghdad after a three month absence. He's astonished at the progress.

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My first clue that things were different in Baghdad came when the manager of my favorite hotel had trouble finding me a room. Last fall, foreign visitors to the city grew so scarce that I was often the only guest in his establishment. Now, the caravansary swarmed with Lebanese businessmen, Turkish contractors, Filipino workers, European journalists, NGO personnel and Christian peace activists. The only space the manager had was a top-floor ''deluxe suite''-- which I eventually traded for a cheaper room once a group of Iranian religious pilgrims decamped for home...

By the end of my first day, I realized that three months had brought numerous changes to the city, most of them good. Police were more evident on the streets, directing traffic in sharp winter uniforms, or zipping around town in new Suzuki motorbikes. By the same token, I saw fewer machine gun-toting private security guards and ''Facility Protection Services'' men loitering on the sidewalks. The once scarifying crime rate, it seems, had dropped to levels similar to an American city. ''You have to hand it to the Iraqis,'' a Lebanese security consultant remarked to me. ''A few months ago, you’d never have thought they’d get this far.''