On Christmas Eve in the Green Zone, karaoke is blaring into the night from a contractor's villa while U.S. troops use a sniffer dog to check for car bombs just a block away.
This morning saw the start of perhaps the most extensive security operation I've seen in this fortified home to the Iraqi government and U.S. mission. Army engineers came with cranes and blocked side streets in the four-square-mile district with concrete barriers. Snap checkpoints (in addition to the usual checkpoints) were mobilized to stop cars and check IDs of pedestrians. There's been an obvious reinforcement of troops, crowding the streets with their convoys of enormous MRAP (mine-resistant ambush protected) armored trucks, all causing gossip and speculation among the thousands of American and Iraqi residents who live in the big compounds, apartment blocks and suburban-style streets.
Military spokesmen have not said any more than that it's the start of a "temporary" operation. Initially, it seemed it might be a kind of dry run for the Jan. 1 handover of authority to the Iraqi government, which is supposed to change little on the ground initially while the two sides work out logistics. But it was obvious this was something more urgent. There appears to be little of the participation from Iraqi troops you would expect from a handover rehearsal. Instead there are American foot patrols checking parked cars and leading dogs.
One soldier said they were told to search for car bombs. It would not be the first time there was such a scare or an actual bombing inside the Green Zone, and there are still frequent attacks around Iraq. But the high alert in the protected confines--even in the unlikely case it is just a drill--contrasts with the reduced violence that Baghdad has seen for several months and highlights what officials mean when they call the situation still "fragile." The concern seems to be that somehow a threat has made its way past the blast walls and checkpoints into the neighborhood of the highest Iraqi and American officials.
And it comes on Christmas Eve, which is not even a bank holiday in the rest of Iraq but has made for dangerous breaks in the routine amid the legions of stir-crazy, homesick diplomats and contractors. A couple of years ago, a guard for Blackwate, reportedly drunk, killed an Iraqi guard who was protecting the gate at a VIP neighborhood. Raucous parties are common. So while the glow of Christmas lights is visible over the high walls of some compounds and Christmas music jingles in the background, the streets are filled with traffic stops and the growl of idling MRAPs as revelers and Iraqi residents are checked for explosives.
