Sept. 20
issue - President George W. Bush and his advisers like to say that
sovereignty has been returned to the Iraqis. But the heart of the Iraqi
capital, where the symbols of power are most concentrated, belongs to
America. Enclosed inside a maze of blast walls, protected by Abrams
tanks and Apache helicopters, the 10 square kilometers of the Green
Zone contain some of Baghdad's finest real estate--the local equivalent
of the White House, the Washington Monument and other prime sites in
downtown Washington. Many Iraqis, including senior ministers and the
mayor of Baghdad, want the Americans to move out of town. But the
Americans won't budge, and don't have to.
Far from
being dismantled, the Green Zone is expanding. NEWSWEEK has learned
that at least five U.S. security and construction companies are
planning to build compounds on the zone's perimeter, eventually to be
incorporated into the rest of the area. That's because the fight for
space inside the zone is intense. A small U.N. team lives in the Green
Zone, and plans are underway to build a future U.N. compound within the
area. Key command centers for the 140,000-strong American military
force occupy several of the most prominent buildings. Favored embassies
and foreign companies are there, too. "Two thirds of the whole question
of occupation is in those homes and those buildings [inside the Green
Zone]," says Iraqi Finance Minister Adel Abdel Mehdi, whose office is
in charge of negotiating the issue with the Americans. "The question of
sovereignty--but also of security and national dignity, and even
economic prosperity--is there."
Safety
is the main sticking point--for the Americans, but also for the Iraqi
interim government. Ministers like Mehdi don't want to be seen as
American stooges, which is one reason they'd like to see the Americans
leave the Green Zone. But they don't want to get blown up or otherwise
murdered, either. Investors and other outsiders also need a place in
the capital where they can feel safe. "Hand it over? No way," said one
U.S. official. "The government wouldn't want that either. Anybody who
comes here, they all want in. Who wouldn't? It's the safest place in
town."
The
Green Zone is certainly a world unto itself. Women in shorts and T
shirts jog down broad avenues, and the Pizza Inn does a brisk business
from the parking lot of the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy. Near the
Green Zone Bazaar, Iraqi kids hawk pornographic DVDs to soldiers. Sheik
Fuad Rashid, the U.S.-appointed imam of the local mosque, dresses like
a nun, dyes his hair platinum blond and claims that Mary Mother of
Jesus appeared to him in a vision (hence the getup). On any given
night, residents can listen to karaoke, play badminton or frequent one
of several rowdy bars, including an invitation-only speakeasy run by
the CIA. At the Green Zone Cafe--where contractors toting 9mm pistols
smoke hookahs while an Iraqi drummer provides entertainment--a sign on
the door warns customers to empty their weapons before consuming
alcohol.
To some,
the Green Zone feels like a vast isolation chamber. One recent night at
a saloon called The Bunker, a resident contractor asked, "So, what's
going on out there in Iraq anyway?" He hadn't left the Green Zone in
six months. "It's like Plato's republic in here, all of these
well-meaning, smart people who want to do the right thing," says one
security contractor and Green Zone regular. "But they never leave here
and they have no idea what's happening in the country they're supposed
to be building. It's totally absurd."
The war
often intrudes. In mid-August a 13-foot FROG missile loaded with more
than 300 pounds of explosives detonated on the roof of a U.S. Embassy
building, causing massive damage but killing nobody. Other attacks,
such as a mortar strike last June that hit a bus just outside the zone,
have succeeded only in killing innocent Iraqis. Several thousand Iraqis
live inside the zone and, with rare exception, U.S. officials have no
idea whose side they're on. "The thugs and looters remain, and many of
them are not very nice," says Lt. Col. Richard Allinger, a longtime
Green Zone resident. Security guards sometimes get out of hand
themselves. A recent spate of shooting incidents between blue-uniformed
security forces inside the Green Zone led to a confidential report,
"Blue on Blue Violence: Target Practice or What?"
The
siege mentality of American occupiers feeds anger among ordinary
Iraqis. Baghdad's mayor, Alaa al-Tamimi, has asked the Americans to
withdraw not just from the Green Zone but also from other barricaded
ghettos--sort of mini Green Zones--because they are an affront to Iraqi
dignity, but also due to the severe traffic problems they create.
Several key bridges and thoroughfares are off-limits to ordinary
Iraqis. Even Abu Nawas Street, a tree-lined avenue across the Tigris
River from the zone, has been closed since last year, when hotels there
barricaded themselves behind blast walls and razor wire. Now Mayor
al-Tamimi is trying to reopen the street to foot traffic. "Abu Nawas
used to be the center of the life of the city," says al-Tamimi. "It
will be again."
Legally,
the Americans don't have to move out, at least not yet. On June 27, the
day before Iraqi sovereignty was declared, L. Paul Bremer issued one of
his last executive orders as Iraq's U.S. administrator. Known as Order
No. 9, it extends the right of occupation forces to control properties
until the Iraqi government decides otherwise. Officially, the United
States is negotiating with the Iraqi government over the issue. But
privately, U.S. officials say plans to move the Americans out are
"fantasy."
So why
doesn't the Iraqi government just demand that U.S. forces leave the
area? Finance Minister Mehdi says he's been badgering the Americans.
"We ask them all the time, 'When are you going to leave the zone?' " he
says. "And we always get the same answer: that they are working on it,
that they will inform us." But divisions within the government have
complicated matters. Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is allegedly in favor
of keeping the Green Zone the way it is, at least for now, partly
because insurgents have targeted him and other officials. (Expansion
plans for the zone include one to extend it by a full kilometer later
this month in order to attach a complex of ministry buildings.) And
pressing the issue forcefully could jeopardize vital American backing.
"They would pay a price: potential curbs in U.S. support, friction on
questions of aid. Iraq does not want to confront the U.S.," says
Anthony Cordesman, a strategy specialist with the Center for Strategic
and International Studies in Washington. But until Iraq demands
otherwise, the biggest symbols of national sovereignty will remain in
American hands.
With Christopher Dickey in Baghdad and Eve Conant in Washington
