Embassy is biggest secret in Baghdad

[Earth_First]

Embassy is biggest secret in Baghdad
Security is tight, but it's hard to hide Americans' 104-acre facility

But it's hard keeping a 104-acre complex rising on the banks of the Tigris River hidden. Anyone who cares to know can easily see four giant construction cranes towering over the river at the largest such project ever undertaken by the United States — a symbol of American presence that will last well into the future.

Baghdad may have little potable water and only a few hours of electricity a day, but the embassy complex will have its own water treatment facilities and electricity generator.

First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting, a subcontractor of Houston-based Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown and Root, was granted the $592 million construction contract. By December, it had already been paid about $483 million.

Money for the project was approved as part of a separate emergency appropriation for embassy security, construction and maintenance and wasn't part of the $18.4 billion set aside for Iraq reconstruction.

[NewJeffCT]

1. It's a secret here.. .not in Iraq

104 acre complex? What is this, the new Krak des Chevaliers?

Let me see if I got this right... This $600 million embassy was not part of the $18.4 billion for Iraq reconstuction, and the $18.4 billion was part of a supplemental spending bill and not part of the regular budget. Hmm - how soon will it be until KBR says that they can't account for most of the money and need another $600 million to continue?

Can I get a similar supplemental spending package that is not part of my household budget? I'd like about $30 grand to finish my basement in a nice fashion, and a few grand more to add in a sprinkler system for my lawn, too.

[SpiralHawk]

2. My name is Chimymandius

Chimpymandius
with apologies to: Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Chimplymandius, King of Kings,
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

[Missy M]

3. Why do we, the American people, put up with this nonsense...

my guess is most Americans don't know this is going on.