Green Zone a safe haven for Americans in Iraq

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
The Washington Post

	LUCIAN PERKINS / THE WASHINGTON POST High walls and barbed wire protect the "Green Zone," the 4-square-mile area that previously was Saddam Hussein's palace compound but now is headquarters to the Coalition Provisional Authority.
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BAGHDAD, Iraq — In Elzain Elzain's Baghdad, they serve peanut butter, lobster and ice cream. The cellphones have a 914 area code — the same as New York's spendy Westchester County. The TVs show "Monday Night Football." The people speak English. And the strictly enforced speed limit is 35 mph.

"It's like I never left America," said Elzain, an artist from Washington, D.C., who works as an interpreter for the U.S.-led occupation government.

Elzain and several thousand other government workers, contractors and soldiers live and work in what is called the Green Zone. The 4-square-mile area, encircled by 15-foot concrete walls and rings of barbed wire, includes Saddam Hussein's former presidential palace compound, now the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority that rules Iraq.

Once an oasis of fabulous architecture, date palms and swimming pools, it is now an eerie mix of shiny white trailers, SUVs, Black Hawk helicopters and ruins created by months of bomb, rocket and mortar attacks.

Some residents say they prefer the comfort of surroundings like home and are happy to stay here, rather than venture out into the real Iraq. But most of the civilians say they came to help — and for the adventure. Their greatest frustration is that they feel trapped inside the Green Zone.

Officials say the idea was to create a "safe area" where civilian advisers and military officials trying to help the country could do their work with less risk than in Baghdad proper. In the early days of the occupation, the creation of the enclave was the subject of much debate between the United States and the United Nations, which based its staff in a hotel on one of the city's busiest streets because it felt it needed to be accessible to the Iraqi public. But after two devastating attacks on U.N. personnel, the philosophical debate has been replaced by the reality of the security situation: Nearly all U.N. workers have gone to neighboring countries.

Venturing from the protection of the Green Zone is not just a chore, it's a feat. Forms must be filled out explaining the reason for the outing, requesting transportation and a protective detail. Some trips must be rescheduled three or four times, with recent trips to visit children at an orphanage, to speak at a women's center and repair a water-treatment plant postponed because of security concerns.

"You want to feel like you are of the people. But when you are here there are rules and you can't go out and you can't talk to them," Elzain said. "You are isolated."

The seclusion, many readily concede, is compounding the challenge of the reconstruction.

"The Americans are behind the walls in the palace. They have difficulty knowing what's going on. I call it the 'green area syndrome,' " said Frank Dall, project director for Washington-based Creative Associates International, which is assisting the U.S. Agency for International Development with education reform and is housed outside the zone.

When Dall began scouting offices in Baghdad in the spring, he felt strongly that his workers should be in the neighborhoods with Iraqis. The company rented houses, in which the staff lived and worked. But now the street in front of their three villas is closed to traffic. A new booth was built to house the armed guards who pat down every visitor. The effect is a mini-Green Zone outside the Green Zone.

The streets of the Green Zone are populated by joggers and people in casual clothes carrying around cellphones that are part of the only operating network in Iraq, run by MCI Communications. To reach someone, even just a few miles away in Baghdad, you call an upstate New York area code.

Because of concerns that food could be poisoned or contaminated, nearly everything is imported. Cases of Aqua Gulf bottled water come from Kuwait, and the frozen food is sent from the United States.

Some local Iraqi entrepreneurs set up the Green Zone Restaurant and Coffee Shop to provide an alternative to cafeteria fare. The most-popular choice is an Iraqi grilled chicken, says the 54-year-old owner, who goes by Abu Fadi. The second and the third choices: American hamburgers and pizza — that is, the Iraqi versions.

There are smaller versions of the Green Zone throughout the country, in the various provisional government command posts. In the Kurdish town of Irbil, the Coalition Provisional Authority's bunker is inside a new luxury hotel high on a hill overlooking acres of lush farmland. In Fallujah, just west of Baghdad, the food in the compound is served by waiters in formal dress.

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company