Baghdad’s Fortified Green Zone Opens to Public After 15 Years
Fifteen years after it was sealed off, the heavily fortified neighborhood in the heart of Baghdad was opened to the public on Monday. The neighborhood, known as the Green Zone, had been cordoned off by the American military in 2003 to protect it from bombings during the war. The four-square-mile patch of land contained Saddam […]Falih Hassan and Rod Nordland write for The New York Times:
Fifteen years after it was sealed off, the heavily fortified neighborhood in the heart of Baghdad was opened to the public on Monday.
The neighborhood, known as the Green Zone, had been cordoned off by the American military in 2003 to protect it from bombings during the war. The four-square-mile patch of land contained Saddam Hussein’s palaces, which later housed the headquarters of the American occupation authorities and military, and the Parliament building, the seat of the new Iraqi government.
But its history and isolation made it a potent symbol first of the American occupation and later of the alienation felt by many Iraqis toward their own government, and Iraqi leaders have been promising to reopen it ever since the American military withdrew in 2011.
