Welcome to the Green$ Zone

[katty]

more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/06/iraq

A plan by US military planners for the "Tigris Woods Golf and Country Club" in the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq. Photograph: US Army/AP

Picture, if you will, a tree-lined plaza in Baghdad's International Village, flanked by fashion boutiques, swanky cafes, and shiny glass office towers. Nearby a golf course nestles agreeably, where a chip over the water to the final green is but a prelude to cocktails in the club house and a soothing massage in a luxury hotel, which would not look out of place in Sydney harbour. Then, as twilight falls, a pre-prandial stroll, perhaps, amid the cool of the Tigris Riverfront Park, where the peace is broken only by the soulful cries of egrets fishing.

Improbable though it all may seem, this is how some imaginative types in the US military are envisaging the future of Baghdad's Green Zone, the much-pummelled redoubt of the Iraqi capital where a bunker shot has until now had very different connotations.

A $5bn (£2.5bn) tourism and development scheme for the Green Zone being hatched by the Pentagon and an international investment consortium would give the heavily fortified area on the banks of the Tigris a "dream" makeover that will become a magnet for Iraqis, tourists, business people and investors. About half of the area is now occupied by coalition forces, the US state department or private foreign companies.

The US military released the first tentative artists' impression yesterday.

[Canuckistanian]

1. "Tigris Woods"???

They have a sense of humor as well as a total lack of common sense and decency.

[katty]

2. o yes they do

[MISSDem]

3. There was a big article in The Commercial Appeal Sunday

about the 1 billion dollar (will be that cost) and the shopping mecca and luxury hotel place, yada yada yada. They had takers to do it. The land that used to sell for a pittance is now very expensive there.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/may/05/spotlight-iraq-green-zone-as-a-resort/