GREETINGS FROM BAGHDAD.(Americans on peace-seeking visit to Baghdad)

Strictly speaking, it is illegal for citizens of the United States to travel to Iraq without permission from the State Department or the Treasury Department, and doing so is punishable by up to twelve years in prison or a million-dollar fine. That didn't stop Sean Penn from embarking on his well-publicized "fact-finding" mission last month. Nor, more recently, did it stop some thirty peace-minded Americans (and one Bianca Jagger) from accepting an invitation from the president of Baghdad University, Dr. Muhammed Al-Rawi, to be his guests at a "Seminar for Peace" in the Iraqi capital. The Americans, all of whom had signed a "No Iraq Attack" petition that circulated on university campuses in the fall, received an e-mail from Dr. Al-Rawi shortly before Christmas. "Warm greetings from Iraq," it said. "To push for peace further, you, the American peace-loving academics, should come and visit Baghdad. . . . This will be a visit of solidarity with the academics of our University and the Iraqi people for peace." In follow-up e-mails ("Greetings from Baghdad"), the Iraqis offered to pay the Americans' expenses, including airfare; all but two of the visiting Americans declined and paid their own way.

A few raised eyebrows and a lecture or two greeted the travellers on their return home the other day, but no charges have been brought, and so, with new peace missions being planned, perhaps some words of advice from the intrepid academics will be of use to aspiring peaceniks.

For starters, leave your cell phones at home; they're not allowed in Iraq, and will be confiscated at Saddam International (and returned on departure). Your best bet, if you want to make a call, is to find Ahmed, in the "communications room" at the Mansour Melia, a European-style five-star hotel overlooking the Tigris River. Vicki Lovegren, who teaches math at John Carroll University, in Ohio, reports that Ahmed uses a "very old-looking switchboard," which can connect you to loved ones back home--except on those evenings when, as Ahmed says, "the international line sick, my dear."

The Mansour Melia is the place to stay, though you should pack a few extra light bulbs, just in case. The elevators tend not to stop on the second floor, so request a room on the third floor or higher. And be sure to try the hotel's hummus, made with cumin and ground-up tuna--"Awesome," Lovegren says.

Menus in Baghdad don't vary much (cucumbers, hummus, shish kebabs), though the options are "better than in Morocco," Wade Savage, a philosophy professor at the University of Minnesota, says. Still, some restaurants are worth trying, such as the Saddam Tower, atop a former telecom building that was bombed in the Gulf War. ...