Jen Banbury makes a visit to the Green Zone, headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad.
- Hunkered down in their weird security zone, the Americans who run Iraq have almost no contact with the country or its people.
Though I can see some of Baghdad’s American-occupied Green Zone from the roof of the house I live in — there, just across the river — the vastness of the enclosure, encased by imported barrier walls, means that to reach the public entrance I must drive a crazy labyrinthine loop through the city. With hundreds of thousands of other cars on the road, all forced to circumvent this American-made fortress, the trip can take 20 minutes to two hours, depending on the vagaries of traffic … read more