Street Scenes in Baghdad: A Reporter's Notebook
They are friendly enough, if they get to know you, and many are often eager to practice their English skills on those who pass through their gates. Also staffing many of the checkpoints is a contingent of soldiers from Georgia. The formerly Soviet state, not the Peach State. They, of course, speak Georgian or Russian, making communication at those checkpoints significantly more difficult.
Diplomacy in Saddam's Former Palace
Some of the most recognizable landmarks in the IZ–after the crossed swords of the Hands of Victory monument–are Saddam Hussein's former palaces. Now most are shattered shells of buildings, fenced off and condemned. Some are still standing, like the palace currently holding the American Embassy. A massive new U.S. Embassy is under construction, but it won't be finished for a few years. Meanwhile, the embassy staff conducts business in the former palace, complete with glass chandeliers and a large dictator-kitsch mural of scud missiles en route to a distant target.
Mortar Attacks in the Green Zone
Scattered around the T-barrier labyrinth are duck-and-cover shelters, made from the same concrete as the barriers, and designed to protect International Zoners during mortar attacks. These come often without warning. There is no sound until the whump of the blast wave and the crack of the exploding shell. Insurgents, militia elements, and disgruntled citizens often lob mortars on the IZ. It's nearly impossible to miss.
American officials are reluctant to speak about mortar attacks inside the Green Zone for fear of alerting insurgents to the accuracy and effectiveness of their attacks. So many of the attacks go unreported. The summit meeting earlier this month between officials from Iran, Syria, Iraq, and the United States, held just outside the IZ, was a target of one such attack.
In fact, insurgents were raining mortars on the IZ all morning. I felt one mortar concussion coming from an open field on the other side of a road while driving to interview a brigadier general about the progress of reconstruction. Our interview was interrupted twice by mortar alarms. The explosive shells fell every few hours during the day, landing one lucky strike on a building where the summit was being held.
No one was reported injured during the day's attacks.
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