Baghdad observations: fear, danger, suffering

[DoYouEverWonder]

June 22, 2006

Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq three years ago, Baghdad's Green Zone has been an island of relative tranquility - a 4-square-mile area where U.S. officials and their Iraqi colleagues work in something close to normalcy as violence rages outside.

But even this massively fortified complex appears at risk from the militias that control ever larger swaths of the country.

In a chilling memo to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad reports that Iraqi guards in the Green Zone are growing "more militia-like, in some cases seemingly taunting."

As one Iraqi employee of the U.S. Embassy entered the zone, guards held up her badge and loudly proclaimed "Embassy" to passers-by. "Such information is a death sentence if overheard by the wrong people," the memo notes.

Titled Snapshots from the Office and reprinted Sunday in the Washington Post, the memo outlines the everyday perils and hardships faced by the nine Iraqis who work in public affairs for the embassy. Though they are just part of the staff, they aren't the only ones suffering in a city where life outside the Green Zone has "visibly deteriorated" and become ''emotionally draining," the memo suggests.

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/06/22/Worldandnation/Baghdad_observations_.shtml