By Darryl Mason
In a revelation that will no doubt come as a surprise to millions of people living in the slums of Baghdad, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, stated that the people most at risk of being killed in his country are living and working inside the Green Zone.
Zebari is in Australia at the moment, ramping up support for Australia's involvement in the Iraq War, thanking the military, and making a pre-emptive, pre-election pitch for why the likely new Australian government should not withdraw combat troops in 2008.
Zebari said in an interview with Lateline that he lived and worked in "the Red Zone" and thought his Baghdad neighbourhood was much safer than the massive walled enclave where thousands of American and coalition forces and diplomats are based.
"In fact the Green Zone is the most dangerous place in Iraq these days," Zebari said. "So outside the Green Zone is much safer."
The Green Zone has been attacked on a near daily basis in recent weeks, with mortars, rockets and RPGs raining down so regularly that those inside the Zone have allegedly been told to wear helmets and flak jackets at all times.
After the United States and the UK, the current Australian government has become the highest profile supporter and member of the Coalition of the Willing, mostly due to the troop pullouts and scaledowns by countries like Spain, Italy and Japan, and Prime Minister John Howard's infamous comments, earlier in the year, when he attacked American presidential hopeful Barak Obama for saying that American troops should withdraw by March next year.
Opposition leader Kevin Rudd, now far ahead of John Howard in the polls, and widely tipped to win the federal elections in November, has pledged to withdraw Australia's combat troops if he becomes prime minister.
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Australia has around 500 combat troops in Iraq, mostly based in the south of the country, and they've come under insurgent attack at least five times in the past month. A number of Australian troops were injured, and their vehicles destroyed, but Australia has suffered no combat related deaths, so far, in the war.
Hoshyar Zebari acknowledged that Australian troops are not essential to the Coalition of the Willing's mission in Iraq, other than as part of a political support front against the insurgency :
"It's the message, actually," he said. "I don't think the number of troops we are talking about will make a major, major impact on the military balance or security balance. But it is the message that it would be misread by our adversary, by the anti-democratic forces to see that the coalition is not holding together and even the closest allies to the United States, Australia and others, are withdrawing or pulling. This is what is negative about it."But is Zebari right in saying that the Green Zone "is the most dangerous" place in Iraq today?
It's an extraordinary claim, considering that dozens of Iraqi police, soldiers and civilians are killed every day in the capital alone, and the American troops are clocking up more than 25 dead and 70 wounded each week across the country from roadside bombings, sniper attacks and street fighting.
Zebari's words may be little more than a clever piece of spin, designed to reassure Australian television viewers that the insurgents and terrorists waging war against the Iraqi government are losing the battle, but perhaps Zebari knows more about just how dangerous life is inside the Green Zone than the Bush administration, and the Howard government, will admit.
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