'Abandon the Green Zone': Former Pentagon Staffer

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The U.S. is mulling over the idea of turning Baghdad's "Green Zone" enclave into a billion-dollar luxury zone, complete with high-end shopping and five-star hotels. Sam Brannen, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former Defense Department policy planner, has another idea: "abando[n] the Green Zone and donat[e] the monstrous embassy just completed" to the Iraqi people.

"Still crowded with the gaudy war memorials and palaces of Saddam’s regime that are too big to tear down, it is for many Iraqis the icon of U.S. occupation and a telling window into a post-surge security environment that looks more likely to loop back than move forward," Brannen writes over at the Small Wars Journal.