Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Picture, if you will, a tree-lined plaza in Baghdad's International Village, flanked by fashion boutiques, swanky cafes, and shiny glass office towers.
Nearby a golf course nestles agreeably, where a chip over the water to the final green is but a prelude to cocktails in the club house and a soothing massage in a luxury hotel, which would not look out of place in Sydney harbour.
Then, as twilight falls, a pre-prandial stroll, perhaps, amid the cool of the Tigris Riverfront Park, where the peace is broken only by the soulful cries of egrets fishing.
Improbable though it all may seem, this is how some imaginative types in the US military are envisaging the future of Baghdad's Green Zone, the much-pummelled redoubt of the Iraqi capital where a bunker shot has until now had very different connotations.
A $5 billion tourism and development scheme for the Green Zone being hatched by the Pentagon and an international investment consortium would give the heavily-fortified area on the banks of the Tigris a "dream" makeover that will become a magnet for Iraqis, tourists, business people and investors.
"This is at the end of the day an Iraqi-owned area and we will give it back to them with added value," said the source.
Marriott International has already signed a deal to build a hotel in the Green Zone, according to Navy Captain Thomas Karnowski.
Also in the pipeline is a possible $1 billion investment from MBI International, a hotel and resorts specialist led by Saudi Shaikh Mohamed bin Issa Al Jaber.
One Los Angeles-based firm, C3, has said it wants to build an amusement park on the Green Zone's outskirts. A skateboard park is due to open this summer.
For Baghdad residents, the Green Zone has been a no-go area for years, first under Saddam and now under the occupation.
