Prostitutes are regular visitors to the Green Zone ( write on the mirrors)

[donsu]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=533058

US paranoid and isolated as Green Zone policy fails

An Iraqi friend, who feared for his life because he was close to the Americans, used to live inside the Green Zone, the heavily protected area in central Baghdad where the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) has its headquarters. One day he fell into conversation with an American soldier guarding one of the gates. The soldier said he was of Iraqi origin and could speak Arabic. He added that security was not quite as tight as it looked since prostitutes were regular visitors to the zone.

My friend, a little alarmed, decided to investigate. He went to a house which was being used as a brothel. He says: "In the toilet I found that the women were writing pro-Baath party, anti-American and patriotic slogans with their lipstick on the mirrors." Their clients could not tell what they had written because it was in Arabic.

-snip-

Much of the security is in the hands of private companies. One day I had an interview with an Iraqi minister inside the zone. We had arranged it over the phone. The meeting never took place. I was first asked who I was by a friendly Nepalese soldier, then questioned by a nervous Algerian and finally stopped by a paunchy security man who, from his accent, came from Mississippi or Alabama.

"We can't let in journalists," he said in a suspicious and hostile tone. "They are a security threat." I asked exactly whom they had threatened. The security man said: "They killed the president of Afghanistan."
-snip-
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the article also said Bremer "remained a remote figure to his own staff as well as to Iraqis."

[Hoping4Change]

1. Interesting story. Thanks for the link.

[UTUSN]

2. The Eternal ignorance-of-other-cultures Thing n/t