Back in 2003, the US government approached the UN with what they referred to as damning evidence of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, of which they assured the world that they had "conclusive proof". Mobile weapons labs, anthrax and a number of other claims were boldly made, and by March the US military were rolling into Iraq to take out the dictator. As few of us are unaware, the evidence supporting their claims turned out to be entirely false - flimsy evidence was blown out of all proportion while other evidence was entirely fabricated, but by the time this much was clear the US was embroiled in a quagmire. Paul Greengrass's Green Zone - named after the secure area of Baghdad in which the US embassy was situated - explores the earlier years of the occupation and the search for WMDs, with Matt Damon playing the role of US Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller leading the investigation. As the search goes from one empty site to another, he realises that a huge cover-up has been initiated to mask the absence of chemical weapons. Few Iraq War movies have attempted to tackle the lies upon which the conflict was built, and Green Zone's closing shots of Iraqi oil fields, hinting at the real reason for the invasion of the country, are a welcome dose of reality amongst the propaganda which often passes for war movies.
