http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0413/p06s03-wogn.htm
Strawberry Shopping in Iraq: Correspondent Jill Carroll went outside in Baghdad without her hijab Tuesday for the first time in three months. The head-to-toe traditional covering allows her to blend in, protecting her from possible kidnapping or attacks. But she had to renew her visa, and that required new photos. "I couldn't wear the hijab to the photo shop and then take if off - that would be a dead giveaway. No hijab-wearing Iraqi woman would take off her garment in public," says Jill. So she decided to go without.
"My Iraqi interpreter took one look at my jeans and shirt and told me to change into something more suitable. I put on a pair of black pants and tailored shirt that Iraqis wear."
Her interpreter signed off on the new wardrobe and they left. "I speak enough Arabic so that the clerk in the photo shop assumed I was Iraqi," says Jill.
While they were waiting for the photos to be developed, they went to a market. "It was a remarkable feeling to be able to walk in the street uncovered. I felt almost naked without the hijab, but also very liberated. We bought strawberries from Syria. That's the first time I've seen strawberries here."
This alone suggests to me that Ms Carroll may have been more than a bit naive. Being able to speak a language is one thing, but being able to speak it in the appropriate local dialect so fluently that a local would assume you were another local? Unless she is part Iraqi or has spent most of her life there, I doubt any Iraqi would be fooled for an instant.