U.S. Building Massive Embassy in Baghdad

[ProSense]

U.S. Building Massive Embassy in Baghdad

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
21 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The fortress-like compound rising beside the Tigris River here will be the largest of its kind in the world, the size of Vatican City, with the population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of Iraq's turbulent future.

Snip...

The embassy complex — 21 buildings on 104 acres, according to a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report — is taking shape on riverside parkland in the fortified "Green Zone," just east of al-Samoud, a former palace of Saddam Hussein's, and across the road from the building where the ex-dictator is now on trial.

Snip...

The designs aren't publicly available, but the Senate report makes clear it will be a self-sufficient and "hardened" domain, to function in the midst of Baghdad power outages, water shortages and continuing turmoil.

It will have its own water wells, electricity plant and wastewaster-treatment facility, "systems to allow 100 percent independence from city utilities," says the report, the most authoritative open source on the embassy plans.

more...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060414/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_new_embassy_2

Construction cranes loom above the site of the new U.S. Embassy being built in Baghdad. The embassy will sit on 104 acres, six times larger than the United Nations compound in New York and two-thirds the acreage of Washington’s National Mall.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12319798/from/RSS

[Divernan]

1. Admission they never expect to secure even the capitol city.

Will it have it's own airport too? Bush and his uber rich friends will similarly be living in gated communities as their policies reduce the US to third world status.

[thereismore]

2. even if (when) our troops leave, they will still hate us

because of this eyesore on the Baghdad landscape. The hatred will never go away. Not until the walls of the Embassy come tumbling down - 50 years from now.

[ixion]

3. gee, but there's not enough cash for infrastructure work

here at home. :grr:

[zippy890]

4. here's an idea of what it will look like

I got this off of Asia Times online about a year ago.

[ProSense]

5. Edited OP to add photo of site. n/t

[htuttle]

6. Send armies into the Middle East, build a castle or two

Just like the last crusades...

[Vickers]

7. Which construction company got THAT contract?

:shrug:

[cassiepriam]

9. Let's see, a company that begins with an H and ends with an N? nt

[politicaholic]

8. I had a friend stay my apartment. I started to worry when he built shelves

five years later he still lives there and I've since moved out because I couldn't handle the smell of his feet.

Perhaps the Iraqis will move out if we, like, don't do laundry for a while or something...

[Chulanowa]

10. Holy crap

Is it going to be sheeted in gold, with two-story black marble fountains that only spray evian, too?

Meanwhile our soldiers on the ground still don't have enough armor keeping their insides on the inside...

[Chomp]

11. Jesus

the utter crassness and obnoxiousness of these idiots never ends. As thereismore pointed out above, do they not uderstand the symbolism of building something the size of VATICAN CITY for chrissakes!!

The CIA world factbook says that vatican City is .44sq km , with a boundry of 3.2km.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/vt.html


Stupid, stupid, stupid fools.

[DinahMoeHum]

12. "massive embassy" = massive truck-bombing target.

n/t