The US Embassy in Bagdad - a monument to Bush's insanity

[LonelyLRLiberal]

In the May 03, 2006 of the Times (UK), there was an interesting article about the US Embassy being built in Bagdad. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-2162249,00.html

Seems the embassy is the only project that was supposedly on time and in budget. Here are excerpts:


Building work at the 104-acre complex, known locally as 'George W's palace', is supposed to be secret, but it is impossible to disguise the cranes dominating the Baghdad skyline


THE question puzzles and enrages a city: how is it that the Americans cannot keep the electricity running in Baghdad for more than a couple of hours a day, yet still manage to build themselves the biggest embassy on Earth?

Irritation grows as residents deprived of air-conditioning and running water three years after the US-led invasion watch the massive US Embassy they call “George W’s palace” rising from the banks of the Tigris.

..........

Officially, the design of the compound is supposed to be a secret, but you cannot hide the giant construction cranes and the concrete contours of the 21 buildings that are taking shape. Looming over the skyline, the embassy has the distinction of being the only big US building project in Iraq that is on time and within budget.

In a week when Washington revealed a startling list of missed deadlines and overspending on building projects, Congress was told that the bill for the embassy was $592 million (£312 million).

The heavily guarded 42-hectare (104-acre) site — which will have a 15ft thick perimeter wall — has hundreds of workers swarming on scaffolding. Local residents are bitter that the Kuwaiti contractor has employed only foreign staff and is busing them in from a temporary camp nearby.

After roughing it in Saddam’s abandoned palaces, diplomats should have every comfort in their new home. There will be impressive residences for the Ambassador and his deputy, six apartments for senior officials, and two huge office blocks for 8,000 staff to work in. There will be what is rumoured to be the biggest swimming pool in Iraq, a state-of-the-art gymnasium, a cinema, restaurants offering delicacies from favourite US food chains, tennis courts and a swish American Club for evening functions.

.......

A State Department official said that the size reflected the “massive amount of work still facing the US and our commitment to see it through”.

[marmar]

1. I think they should open it up to all the Iraqis without power...

or whose homes have been blown to bits in this bullshit war.

[joemurphy]

2. It'll be fun watching it get looted after we pull out. n/t

[Matilda]

7. Why would they build something like this unless they were planning to stay?

Even if they withdraw from the rest of the country, it looks as if a
sizable contingent is going to stay in Baghdad for an indefinite time.

[Boo Boo]

3. It's not a palace. It's a castle. /nt

[badgerpup]

4. I thought the difference was...

...a castle is a merely defensible building, and the occupants don't neccesarily have to be royal or even 'noble'.

A palace on the other hand, is a residence for royalty (not sure how far down royalty is counted; descendents, cousins, etc.) and is usually more of a showplace to impress the local yokels and visiting dignitaries with how high-and-mighty the occupant is...

[Boo Boo]

5. Yeah, that sounds about right. The way that complex is described, with

it's 15 ft. thick surrounding wall, like a little city inside, makes it sound like a castle. Maybe it's a little of both.

Pastle? :shrug:

[badgerpup]

6. Callace!

Get it?
Callace...Callous? As in having no respect or regard for others?

OK...can't blame me for trying...and YOU started it! :pals: :toast:

[Marrak]

8. An the people building this B**h tribute?...

A U.S. Fortress Rises in Baghdad:
Asian Workers Trafficked to Build World's Largest Embassy

by David Phinney, Special to CorpWatch
October 17th, 2006

John Owen didn’t realize how different his job would be from his last 27 years in construction until he signed on with First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting in November 2005. Working as general foreman, he would be overseeing an army of workers building the largest, most expensive and heavily fortified US embassy in the world. Scheduled to open in 2007, the sprawling complex near the Tigris River will equal Vatican City in size.

Then seven months into the job, he quit.

Not one of the five different US embassy sites he had worked on around the world compared to the mess he describes. Armenia, Bulgaria, Angola, Cameroon and Cambodia all had their share of dictators, violence and economic disruption, but the companies building the embassies were always fair and professional, he says. The Kuwait-based company building the $592-million Baghdad project is the exception. Brutal and inhumane, he says “I’ve never seen a project more fucked up. Every US labor law was broken.”

In the resignation letter last June, Owen told First Kuwaiti and US State Department officials that his managers beat their construction workers, demonstrated little regard for worker safety, and routinely breached security.
<http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14173>