Hotel at heart of war's start is now all but abandoned (the Palestine)

[Barrett808]

Hotel at heart of war's start is now all but abandoned
By Hamza Hendawi
ASSOCIATED PRESS

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S.-led invasion was only days away, in early 2003, when Saddam Hussein's Information Ministry ordered foreign reporters to move from the storied Rasheed hotel to the Palestine hotel across the Tigris river.

To the roughly 100-strong media contingent in Baghdad at the time, the move was an unwelcome journey into the unknown at a time of deep uncertainty. But to the dilapidated 350-room Palestine, once an upscale French-run Meridien, the move was a godsend.

For much of the next three tumultuous years, the Palestine had a full house and became the center of the international media in Iraq. It's a place that bore witness to, and wears scars from, Baghdad's fall and democracy's early stirrings in post-Saddam Iraq.

Today the Palestine makes a forlorn spectacle, suffering along with the rest of a city torn by violence and fear.

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http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/14985706.htm