Beer bongs and keg stands in Baghdad? cites some drinking stories from Raucous bar scene emerges in Baghdad’s green zone:
In a city where few people drink, Baghdad’s sealed-off green zone counts at least seven bars, including a Thursday night disco, a sports bar, a British pub, a rooftop bar run by General Electric, and a bare-bones trailer-tavern operated by the contractor Bechtel.
Only employees of the occupation are welcome in most of them. U.S. troops ejected a reporter from the basement sports bar a few months ago, at the instance of Coalition Provisional Authority employees drinking inside.
The plushest tavern is the CIA’s rattan furnished watering hole, known as the ”OGA bar.” OGA stands for ”Other Government Agency,” the CIA’s low-key moniker.
The OGA bar has a dance floor with a revolving mirrored disco ball and a game room. It is open to outsiders by invitation only. Disgruntled CPA employees who haven’t wangled invites complain that the CIA favors women guests.
An American government worker said the British residents are especially keen to drink. A joke running through the green zone says that British officials overseeing construction of their new embassy are giving highest priority to opening the embassy pub.
One of the more interesting hangouts is the Green Zone Cafe, a tent erected in the parking lot of a former gas station. The cafe brings together a raucous mix of occupation personalities and others like reporters who don’t carry government IDs.
On a typical evening, one can see U.S. soldiers smoking from 4-foot-tall hookahs and security contractors guffawing over beer, their machine guns by their sides. The CPA’s would-be strategists can sometimes be seen in their ubiquitous military desert boots and dress shirts and slacks, playing Risk, the board game of global domination.
Hookah, beer, and Risk. It’s a good life.