BLOOD RUNS IN GREEN ZONE, BUT WHY?
Although Green Zone, directed by Paul Greengrass, attributes facts portrayed in the film to journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s Imperial Life in the Emerald City (2006), the sequence of events from the American occupation of Baghdad in April 2003 has been provided in several accounts. Much more are in George W. Bush, War Criminal? (2009). The focus in the film is on fictional Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (played by Matt Damon), who arrives in Baghdad four weeks after “shock and awe” is over and Americans have entered Baghdad. His assignment is to find the weapons of mass destruction that were Bush’s presumed casus belli, though the film does not indicate to whom he is supposed to report. Provided with a list of sites to check out, his unit suffers some casualties in the hunt, but no such WMDs are found. Clark Poundstone (played by Greg Kinnear), in charge of military intelligence, has a different assignment–to track down and kill the enemies identified in the “deck of cards.” A third unit, the CIA under the authority of Martin Brown (played by Brendan Gleeson), is trying to bring about a peaceful transition in Iraq by making a deal with defeated Iraqi army leaders to restore order in a city that the film portrays as in chaos–with looting, American mistreatment of civilians, a lack of electricity and water, and an absence of authority (legitimate exercise of power). Miller gets no help from Poundstone, in locating WMD, so he seeks information from the prewar source of articles about WMD, Wall Street Journal writer Lawrie Dayne (played by Amy Ryan), who of course is a stand-in for Judith Miller. Confronting her, Dayne admits that her sole source about WMD was Poundstone, who in turn reported to her what a confidential source—codenamed Magellan–told him. Now both Dayne and Miller want Poundstone to arrange to meet Magellan. Then Freddy (played by Khalid Abdalla) enters the scene, an Iraqi who offers to reveal the location of an ongoing meeting of high-level Saddamists in a private home. After Miller hires Freddy as his interpreter, his unit reaches the house, tries to fight its way inside, but many attendees leave, including General Al-Rawi (played by Yigal Naor), the “Jack of Clubs.” Believing that that Al-Rawi is Magellan, Miller tries to hunt him down in order to find the location of WMD. Brown wants to make a deal with Al-Rawi, but that possibility ends when newly appointed J. Paul Bremer dissolves the Iraqi army and fires all Ba‘athists in the government, thereby ensuring that the underground Iraqi army will launch an insurgency. While Poundstone puts out the order to kill Al-Rawi, Miller finds Al-Rawi, who in turn he confides that he told Poundstone that all WMD production ceased in 1991. Thus, the war was based on a lie. Poundstone clearly wants Al-Rawi killed to cover up the lie. A clever Hollywood ending then ensues. Throughout, filmviewers are exposed to several unacknowledged war crimes: (1) conspiracy to wage war, (2) propaganda for war, (3) destruction of undefended targets, (4) indiscriminate attacks against civilians, (5) use of prohibited weapons, (6) excessive targeting of civilians, (7) extrajudicial executions, (8) excessive military force, (9) inhumane treatment of prisoners, (10) cruel treatment of prisoners, (11) interrogation beyond name, rank, and serial number, (12) threatening prisoners, (13) coercive interrogation, (14) failure to protect prisoners from intimidation, (15) reckless endangerment of a prisoner’s health, (16) failure to re-establish order and security by the occupation authority, (17) intimidation of civilians, (18) failure to respect the Iraqi legal framework, (19) failure to allow Iraqi self-government, (20) penalties imposed on Iraqis for prewar acts, (21) mass unemployment. The Political Film Society has nominated Green Zone for best film displaying the absurdity of war and best film on human rights for 2010. MH