---

Dog Days of Summer
Reporter’s notebook: Amid explosions, suicide bombers and oppressive heat, an optimist reaches his breaking point.

July 16 - I’ve always been something of an optimist, but everyone has a breaking point. Mine came on Saturday as I toured the infamous “Green Zone” in central Baghdad. This fortress is quite literally the heart of the new Iraq, not to mention the only safe place in the country. Then again, maybe not. Roadblocks, blast walls and barbed wire are the most common sights in this walled-in mini-city, called the international zone, which is fitting because these days it’s guarded by soldiers from Georgia—and I don’t mean the U.S. state.

The Green Zone has changed a lot since I was last here, around 18 months ago, and so has Iraq. But from what little I’ve seen in the last 24 hours, I wonder whether it’s for the worse. The security situation has deteriorated so badly that journalists rarely venture out unless they’re embedded with U.S. soldiers. That wasn’t the case early last year, when foreigners could walk the streets outside the Green Zone, shop in local markets, and, most important to journalists, talk to the Iraqi people. Those days are long gone.

The situation inside the Green Zone is scarcely better. Heavily armed troops guard government buildings and hospitals, menacingly pointing their weapons at any one who approaches. Soldiers manning checkpoints can use deadly force against motorists who fail to heed their instructions, so the warning signs say, and I have no doubt they’d exercise that right in a heartbeat if they felt threatened. All this fear and tension, and inside a six square mile area that’s supposed to be safe.

Amid this insecurity, confusion and oppressive summertime heat, my mind keeps returning to one thing: Dick Cheney. I don’t understand how the U.S. vice president concluded recently that the insurgency terrorizing Iraq was in its “last throes.” We’re obviously not reading the same newspapers. The mere fact that there is a Green Zone should tell you something....

...Say what you will about whether the United States was justified to invade this country. We’re well into the game, and it’s too late to argue over who got the ball first. But prior to April 2003, there were no suicide bombers in Baghdad, there was 24-hour electricity and people went out at night. Now, if you drive into town from the airport, there is a legitimate possibility you will get killed. How long can the insurgents keep it up? Who knows, but they haven’t let the dust and heat of summertime Iraq stop them. Let’s just say that the insurgency doesn’t take the day off because of weather conditions....