Filling the void in Iraq’s underdeveloped amusement park industry

April 24, 2008

Quick quiz: what does Iraq really need? If you said “political reconciliation” or “a functioning infrastructure,” you’re not thinking with the kind of outside-the-box creativity that Llewellyn Werner is.

Llewellyn Werner admits he is facing obstacles most amusement park developers never have to deal with – insurgent attacks and looting.

When you are building an amusement park in downtown Baghdad, those risks come with the territory.

Mr Werner, chairman of C3, a Los Angeles-based holding company for private equity firms, is pouring millions of dollars into developing the Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience, a massive American-style amusement park that will feature a skateboard park, rides, a concert theatre and a museum. It is being designed by the firm that developed Disneyland.

“The people need this kind of positive influence. It’s going to have a huge psychological impact,” Mr Werner said.

Um, yeah. If you say so.

Baghdad’s “Entertainment Experience” will reportedly occupy (no pun intended) 50 acres adjacent to the Green Zone. (It is the site of the old zoo, which was “looted, left without power and abandoned after the American-led invasion in 2003.”)

Werner’s project, which includes a 50-year lease, will cost a half-billion dollars. Iraqis will manage the facility, and he’ll “retain exclusive rights to housing and hotel developments.”

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, Jonathan Stein did raise one concern:

Sure. A massive Disneyland-style amusement park, operated for American profit, plunked in the middle of Baghdad — that won’t be a target for hostilities. Not at all.

As for Werner, his motivation is not entirely altruistic. He noted that the children of Sunnis and Shi’ia alike can enjoy the “Entertainment Experience,” but he has profit to consider.

“I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t making money,” he said. “I also have this wonderful sense that we’re doing the right thing – we’re going to employ thousands of Iraqis. But mostly everything here is for profit.”

Stein wondered whether that same quote might be attributed to officials in the Bush administration.

I’m sitting here trying to think of a smart-assed comment, but words have failed me….

  • Let’s just say you don’t want to go to Genocide Land, drive the IED go kart track or meet Lyndsie England at the Abu Graib “Fun” House.

  • Werner might want to start small: there are a couple of bird markets which had, in the past, served as such family (both Sunni and Shi’ia) gathering places. Until suicide bombers decided that any large gathering of humans will do for their “entertainment”. Werner might want to move his business there. And then there are other places, already built or in the process: the US Embassy, the size of Vatican City. The bases. Hey, he could take over the entire Green Zone, once we vacate it…

  • This has all skipped the sublime and gone straight to ridiculous. The mind reels.

  • I guess in a boring and placid place like Baghdad, you really need some rollercoasters to get the blood flowing.

  • Well, that covers just about everything Austin Powers is afraid of.

    AUSTIN
    Thank you, Exposition. Only two things, scare me, and one is nuclear war.

    BASIL EXPOSITION
    What’s the other?

    AUSTIN
    Excuse me?

    BASIL EXPOSITION
    What’s the other thing you’re scared of?

    AUSTIN
    Carnies.

  • The Green Zone IMAX Experience! I can hardly wait. This will beat EuroDisney hands down..

  • Interesting. Do a little digging and you’ll find that Mr. Werner is not only a supporter of Barack Obama, he also served under Jerry Brown, and was an antiwar activist in a former life. In the 80s he and partner Richard Walden founded “Operation California” which provided much needed relief to Cambodian children after the Khymer Rouge. It is now known as Operation USA which provides disaster relief all over this country and wherever it’s need.

    Sounds like this man’s heart is in the right place, Steve. Let’s investigate a little further before we leap to conclusions, maybe?

    Since the war started, I’ve often used Skype to talk with Iraqis and Americans in Iraq, for a view from the front not found here or anywhere else. Many Iraqis really want us there. Some even, believe it or not, love GWB and his daddy. I encourage you all to give it a try. All are always happy to talk and share their experiences.

  • Sounds like this man’s heart is in the right place, Steve. MissMudd

    Maybe, but you know what they say about the road to hell.

  • Well, it’s certainly true that diversions and amusements are a necessary part of a return to normal, but all that’s coming to my mind is that the rides will serves as moving targets, arcade-shooting-gallery-style.

  • I guess somebody’s gonna profit, Doubtful, one way or the other. I’d rather it be those who may use those profits for the greater good than to the corporate titans we love to hate.

    Way I see it, Iraq’s a done deal. What becomes of it is down to us. Or not.

    And Neil, I agree it’s hard to fathom, but giving kids in a war-torn country simple things to smile about may reap rewards we can’t imagine. Who can say?

  • We can’t fix the water supply, the waste water treatment plants or the electrical plants but Americans can build an amusement park if it’s for profit. Capitalism at its best. Maybe someone should pay this company to build everthing but an amusement park.

  • Amusement parks and thrill rides area luxury of people who live safe and prosperous lives. For the people of Baghdad and Iraq whose everyday lives offer the thrills of near-death experiences on a daily basis, I’d bet “Green Zone Land” would be a better option. After having my door kicked in by American troops at night, being frisked by Iraqi troops with loyalties to god-knows-who at every checkpoint and dodging sniper fire from the pissed-off minority group du jour, going to a place without rides offering near-death experiences, adrenaline rides and instead offering a period of peace and safety would be a true blessing. I’ll bet people in Bagdad would pay for a place to know they wouldn’t have to suffer a jolt of adrenaline form the sounds of bombings, the threats of personal harm or the excitement that your life’s destiny is out of your hands. That’s their daily life. Peaceful boredom, instead, would be the luxury.

  • THIS! THIS IS WHY THE WORLD HATES US! When you here the term “capitilists pigs” being uddered by foreigners, this is the kind of thing their talking about. Everything petorado has said about this idea is dead on. I mean, really, what’s a “thrill ride” mean to a person who lives their life ducking sniper fire, trying to avoid IED’s or suicide bombers, or worst of all, fearing that men will break into your house, rape your wife and kids, then tourture you to death over a weeks time. Just when I thought I couldn’t be more ashamed of our involvement in Iraq, the bottom drops out.

  • I’m reminded of a carnival I went to when I was a kid – it was during Desert Storm, and one of the games there featured a man dressed as Saddam Hussein, and for a dollar, you could shoot a paintball gun at him.

    If they had this game at Iraqi-Disney, only with someone in a George Bush getup, maybe the park WOULD be a success!

  • While I question whether an amusement park is the right approach, I think allowing capitalists to bring an entertainment industry into the country (at their risk, not at the American tax-payer’s risk) may be a good thing strategically. It would of course be preferable that infrastructure like power and sewer be established first.

    Probably a better and more profitable business would be to open several movie theatres or playhouses to show popular Islamic cinema and such.. maybe they have that already?

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