Anxiety Rises Over Vulnerable Housing In Iraqi Green Zone

[struggle4progress]

By Sholnn Freeman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 8, 2008; Page A08

BAGHDAD, April 7 -- A little after sunrise on Easter Sunday, a mortar shell or rocket crashed into Paul Converse's trailer inside the Green Zone, the rigorously defended seat of U.S. power in Iraq. Converse, who once told his brother he felt safer in Iraq than on American freeways, died the next day ...

A 56-year-old government auditor, Converse was the first of four Americans to die in Green Zone shelling in the past two weeks. Four days after Converse's death, Mazin Zwayne, a 62-year-old American civilian working for the Defense Department, was killed in a shelling attack. On Monday, shells killed two American soldiers and wounded 17 others. It is so far unclear whether the others were also killed in trailers, in part because the U.S. Embassy, citing security concerns, generally refuses to give details of where shells and rockets hit ...

The Green Zone was once considered an American oasis -- a protected bubble of comfort food, large, American-made sport-utility vehicles and enforced speed limits. But intensified shelling has contributed to a growing sense of insecurity on the eve of testimony before Congress by the two highest-ranking U.S. officials in Iraq: Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker.

According to the Ministry of Interior, at least 14 non-Americans have died in the Green Zone since the March 23 attack that killed Converse. Among them: two guards at the residence of one of Iraq's two vice presidents, an Indian construction worker at a United Nations compound, an Iraqi policeman and two Iraqi laborers. Explosions have also destroyed parked helicopters and military vehicles, and set buildings on fire ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/07/AR2008040702533.html?hpid=topnews

[Wilms]

1. Seems there's a lot of anxiety rising over vulnerable housing everywhere you go. n/t