US occupation of palace irritates Iraqis

[floda]

US occupation of palace irritates Iraqis
By Anne Barnard, Globe Staff | June 19, 2004

BAGHDAD -- When US soldiers first drove into Baghdad last year, they took showers in Saddam Hussein's main palace and smoked cigars in his armchairs, the ultimate show of power over an invaded country.

The United States then cordoned off several square miles around the Republican Palace, blocking off many of the main routes through the center of downtown Baghdad, and dubbed the area the Green Zone. The marble palace, which was home to three Iraqi presidents before Hussein, became the headquarters of the country's occupiers. And with 11 days left until Iraq regains sovereignty, the occupiers aren't packing to leave. They are converting the palace into part of the massive new US Embassy compound.

From Iraq's new president to the men who stand guard at the Martyrs' Monument to the country's war dead -- itself taken over as a US base until last month -- Iraqis are irritated at the prospect of US diplomats occupying their country's equivalent of the White House. The dispute is becoming a test of how strongly the new Iraqi state can assert its will against a country that will retain great power here even after the occupation formally ends, because the 138,000 US troops remaining far outnumber Iraq's military and the United States controls $18 billion in reconstruction aid.

US officials have expressed surprise that an issue has been made of their continued stay in the palace, which they expect to be a temporary, practical measure to house 1,500 employees during the two-year project to complete the new embassy, State Department officials told Congress this week.

more...

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/06/19/us_occupation_of_palace_irritates_iraqis?mode=PF

[kat21]

1. Thanks for posting this -

The occupation of that palace has always been a bone of contention with me and the fact that "U.S. official have expressed surprised that an issue has been made" is beyond me. Once again they have no clue whatsoever.

:crazy:

[KissMyAsscroft]

2. They know it irritates them, they dont care.

They don't care what a bunch of "dirty towelheads" think...they like Saddam's bitchin' palace full of gold. It's super sweet and looks awesome with a bunch of cool Humvees parked in front of it.

[OKNancy]

3. "the strangest organization ever created"

From another article on D.U.

----------------------

This isolation helps explain the CPA's repeated mistakes. When it arrived 14 months ago Iraqis were evenly divided on whether they had been liberated or occupied by the US. The CPA's own poll shows that just 2 per cent of Iraqis say they feel liberated and 92 per cent say they are occupied. The CPA may be the least successful organisation ever created by the US government. It is certainly one of the strangest. "It is really like living in an open prison,' said one CPA official.

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

[newyawker99]

6. Hi kat21!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[uptown ruler]

4. you'd think..

that the people who make decisions like this would have thought a little harder about it...yeah its a big pissoff to saddam to live in his palace, but to the ppl of iraq, jeesh... and these people are in charge of things?


Spread the Word
CausePimpingThePeopleAin’tEasy

[Sabriel]

5. "Irritates"?

A mosquito in my room at night "irritates" me. A tissue in a pants pocket in the washer "irritates" me. Couldn't they find an even milder word to use? It makes the Iraqi people sound merely inconvenienced, in the short term.

[keithyboy]

7. No matter that is was Saddam's palace..it's a part of Iraqi history anc

culture. How would Americans feel if the WH were occupied? Er, I mean other than with the present occupiers.

[peacetalksforall]

8. Arrogance - how can any people making decisions like the palace one

and the prison one and the takeover one be considered humble or be considered human people who value another man's culture. America - going backwards in time with Bush and the Neo-Cons and their cabal.

[otohara]

9. I Read About This A Couple of Weeks Ago - Not A Good Thing At All

kill their people, torcher prisoners who know nothing and steal their palaces. Bushshit way to win hearts and minds of the Iraqi's...

[struggle4progress]

10. kick

:kick:

[eridani]

11. Clueless even inside the Green Zone

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/062004C.shtml

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.

The story illustrates the way in which the CPA officials became wholly isolated from the real opinions of Iraqis. Arriving in the wake of the war last year they cut themselves off inside Saddam Hussein's old palace complex. They were as remote from the lives of ordinary Iraqis as if they lived in a Martian spaceship which had temporarily touched down in the centre of Baghdad.

[bvar22]

12. Turning over total sovereignty to Iraq,

but American Rulers will stay enshrined in the Iraqi National Palace!


The Arrogance, Ignorance, and Ugliness keeps growing.

They do this in our names, and we pay for it all.