Inspired by Rajiv Chandrasekaran's nonfiction book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone", the film is a fictional thriller set in the "Green Zone," a walled and fortified area where U.S. troops stay during the Iraq occupation. There, critics say, flawed decisions are made because leaders are separated from the realities of life in war-torn Iraq.

Damon plays an officer who teams with a senior CIA officer to search for evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Ryan will play a New York Times foreign correspondent sent to Iraq to investigate the U.S. government's WMD claims. Kinnear plays another CIA officer. Antoni Corone has been cast as a colonel.