BAGHDAD – Mohammad Rabat is a farmer in his seventies. He lives with his wife and nine children in a single story cement house in what has come to be known as the Green Zone.
The Green Zone, or the International Zone as it is also called, is a three square mile area in Baghdad protected naturally by the Tigris river on two sides.
Before Saddam Hussein rose to power in the 1970s, this was just the usual set of streets with some private houses. Then Saddam picked the spot to build a complex of palaces and high-class housing for officials and their cronies.
By the time his regime fell last year, it had become an exclusive zone from which many ordinary citizens were kept out.
The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) then made the Green Zone its administrative headquarters. The area also housed military and U.S. government officials.
L. Paul Bremer, who was CPA administrator, and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of the U.S. forces, until recently had their offices in the Green Zone. So did officials from Britain, Washington’s main ally in the Iraq invasion.
After the seeming handover of power to Iraqi officials in June, the government of prime minister Iyad Allawi has let on that it is asking the United States to cede some of this territory.
U.S. and Iraqi officials say Allawi has personally and pointedly brought up the issue with U.S. ambassador John Negroponte. The top U.S. diplomat has said he only has charge of a small portion used by the embassy.
U.S. military commanders are equally vague on where the talks stand. "At the current time, with the negotiations and consultations going on, we are using what we need," Lt. Col. Stephen Boylan, director of press operations for the U.S. military told IPS.
"We expect that in the future, as things progress for the Iraqi government and [U.S. military] operations, we will be able to return portions of the Green Zone," he added. "That would be in direct consultation and negotiations with the [Iraqi] government."
But it is not clear how much of the Iraqi government’s push is genuine and how much a show for Iraqis who consider the Allawi government an extension of U.S. power.
The offices and residence of the interim president and prime minister lie in the Green Zone, as do some of the main operations offices of the ministries of defense and the interior, and the intelligence headquarters.
If the U.S. were to hand the area back to the Iraqi government, these places could lose much needed security.
Iraqis who live here have mixed feelings about what their neighborhood has become. Rabat, the elderly farmer, says he likes U.S. control of the area. An elderly woman says she plans to leave, though she would be happy to rent the place to a U.S. company.
"With the checkpoints, sometimes it takes two hours [to pass]," she says. "Relatives are hesitant to come and visit because they need special passes. And the mortars and rockets are something terrible. Always, there is some shelling."
The closure of the streets and bridges leading to the Green Zone has hurt local businesses most, like the nighttime fish and kebab joints on the banks of the Tigris or small shops in front of the former presidential compound that became the CPA headquarters.
The interim Iraqi government now, like the CPA before it, often closes the streets leading to the main government buildings in case of a security threat, or during major meetings or VIP visits. All this affects what little business shop owners hope for.
But the picture is not all bleak. Some entrepreneurs have opened businesses to cater to the foreigners.
Khaled Moayed and his brothers opened a pizza shop outside the main gate of the former presidential compound in May. They used to run a pizza store in Italy before the war, and returned to Iraq after the fall of Saddam. Now they run even a delivery service for American officials and troops, and for foreign correspondents staying in this area.
"I don’t want customers’ delivery to be delayed by traffic or explosions," Moayed says. "So I have limited the places. This is really the best place to have the shop."
