Timesonline reports that Llewellyn Werner, chairman of C3, a Los Angeles-based holding company for private equity firms, is dumping $500 million into The Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience – an American-style amusement park featuring a skatepark, rides, a concert theatre, and a museum.

The park is being designed by the same firm that developed Disneyland.

Werner will retain exclusive rights to the development project. He told the Timesonline: 

“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.” 

Petraeus is a “big supporter” of the park, according to the Timesonline.  

Does a Disneyland-style amusement park in a volatile, war-torn country reek of cultural hegemony and yet another excuse to privatize more of Iraq’s resources for US profit? It does to me.