A New Year Dawns For Iraqi Sovereignty

A good day, which the Washington Post treats with respect, at least where it counts, ie, the first few paragraphs: As Clock Strikes 12, U.S. Hands Iraq Control of Green Zone

The walls of the majestic Republican Palace in Baghdad’s Green Zone have been stripped bare. The vaults that secured American cash and classified documents are gone, and the cement blast walls that protected the front entrance were taken down this week. The U.S. military dining facility inside what was once the American Embassy served its last meal New Year’s Eve.

“This is the end of the world as we know it,” said Sgt. 1st Class Patrick McDonald, 47, who co-authored a guide to historic sites in the Green Zone. “It’s not like everyone is shredding documents and fleeing Saigon. But we are stepping away from a building.”

Saddam Hussein had the palace compound’s main building decorated with giant busts of himself to demonstrate his hold over Iraq. After the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the palace came to symbolize the American role in the country, first as the headquarters of the U.S. occupation authority and later the U.S. Embassy. American civilians and troops held “salsa night” dances around the pool behind the palace before retiring to trailers sheathed in sandbags.

When the clock struck midnight on Wednesday, the U.S. returned the palace to the Iraqi government and relinquished formal control over the Green Zone, a heavily fortified six-square-mile enclave on the Tigris River where key U.S. and Iraqi bureaucracies are situated.

The handover is a sign of the shrinking footprint and influence of the United States in a country where it has lost thousands of lives and spent billions of dollars. For many Iraqis, the handover represents a significant step forward in their gradual reassertion of dominion over their own affairs.

“On January 1, we are going to control this,” Adnan Karim, 22, an Iraqi soldier manning a checkpoint at one of the entrances to the Green Zone, said, beaming. “The U.S. will be here just as observers. It’s a matter of pride.”

And Iraqi’s are proud of how far they have come, and that their democracy, and destiny, is almost completely in their hands. Like with most of the areas which have been handed back to Iraq forces, the US military is going to act in an advisory role in the Green Zone. 

Even the NY Times has a good story, though they had to start with an idiotic headline (Heart of U.S. Occupation Reverts to Iraqi Control) and dumb, DNC/MoveOn/World Can’t Wait first paragraph

For nearly six years, the Green Zone has become such an enduring shorthand for a willfully sequestered occupation of Iraq that it is easy to forget it is an actual place.

Then it gets good. Apparently, the editors at the Times were only sober enough to mess up the beginning of the story. 

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One Response to “A New Year Dawns For Iraqi Sovereignty”

  1. John Ryan says:

    Yup it is finally coming to an end !

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