Iraq Green Zone
The nation of Iraq brought in the new year with a new power! The United States handed over control of the Green Zone and Saddam Hussein’s presidential palace to Iraqi authorities on Thursday in a ceremonial move described by the country’s prime minister as a restoration of Iraq’s sovereignty. Things are changing, but how fast is what most politicians will ask.
What was once the biggest issue for Americans has now faded into the past for two major reasons.
We are leaving Iraq. It’s becoming more and more obvious that our combat troops are les and less involved in fighting and more involved in training and preparing to depart over the next 1-3 years. But then there’s the bigger gorilla in the neighborhood that we’re focuing on and that would be the MAJOR RECESSION worldwide.
At a ceremony marking the transition, Nouri al-Maliki said he will propose Jan. 1 be declared a national holiday to commemorate what he called “Sovereignty Day”: the day Iraq took the lead in security away from U.S. forces, regained control of its airspace and reclaimed a wide swath of Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone. The area that became known as the Green Zone on the west bank of the Tigris River was occupied by the United States shortly after the 2003 U.S. invasion and walled off from the rest of the city.
Until Wednesday, Saddam’s former palace formally served as the U.S. Embassy and headquarters of the U.S military in Iraq. Thursday’s palace handover was mostly ceremonial, as most U.S. diplomats and military officials long since moved to a new embassy building on the other side of the Green Zone, which is also known as the International Zone.
“This palace is the symbol of Iraqi sovereignty and by restoring it, a real message is directed to all Iraqi people that Iraqi sovereignty has returned to its natural status,” al-Maliki said.
And so the transition continues.
