Iraqis Want Green Zone Gone

by Steve Soto

It looks like we just wasted hundreds of millions of dollars building a fortress in Baghdad.

The green zone of Baghdad, a highly fortified slice of American suburbia on the banks of the Tigris river, may soon be handed over to Iraqi control if the increasingly assertive government of Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, gets its way.

A senior Iraqi government official said this weekend the enclave should revert to Iraqi control by the end of the year. “We think that by the end of 2008 all the zones in Baghdad should be integrated into the city,” said Ali Dabbagh, the government’s spokesman.

“The American soldiers should be based in agreed camps outside the cities and population areas.

That pretty much reverses the Petraeus plan.

“By the end of the year, there will be no green zone,” he added. “The separation by huge walls makes people feel angry.” . . . . He said the concrete walls that divide it from the rest of the city would be taken down slowly, “depending on the threat and circumstances”.

I can't wait to see John McCain and the Bush administration tell us that the Iraqis don't mean it.