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.
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