Baghdad embassy-fortress nearly built

[NeoConsSuck]

Source: USA Today

The United States' largest and costliest embassy, a heavily fortified compound in Baghdad with its own power plant and lighted softball field, is on track to be completed next month, on time and within budget.
"We're going to complete it on schedule," said Charles Williams, director of the State Department's overseas building operations. It took two years to build, he said.

The 65-acre compound will be largely a world unto itself, insulated as much as possible from problems that plague the rest of Baghdad.


The facility sits on the banks of the Tigris River in the Green Zone, a walled-off area that houses Iraqi and U.S. offices. The embassy will have a separate set of 9-foot-high concrete walls to protect it against car or truck bombs. Many of the buildings also will have specially made bulletproof doors and windows, Williams said.




Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-08-23-Iraqembassy_N.htm

[formercia]

1. Take that, you elderberry smelling insurgents!

Your mother is a Hamster.

[Nickster]

2. Wait wait wait, something being built in Iraq by gov't contractors came in on time and within budget

What? That can't be right.

[formercia]

3. Extra slave labor

works every time.

[Supersedeas]

7. the price is always negotiable...or at least the definition of the term "budget"

[bdamomma]

4. what leave Iraq now?

:sarcasm:


The 65-acre compound will be largely a world unto itself, insulated as much as possible from problems that plague the rest of Baghdad.


(the problems we created, I feel like doing this :puke: )

[peaches2003]

5. And Bush says we plan to leave Iraq?

I would love to hear some press conference tough questions of Bush as to why we are building this monstrosity. Why do we need over 1000 employees there on 65 acres? Haven't heard the Boy King have to answer any questions at all. And you wonder why the Middle East hates us.:banghead:

[bemildred]

6. Fort Zinderneuf on the Euphrates. nt

[David__77]

8. I wonder what use this building will serve after the US is evicted or abandons it?

No way are they going to remain there in the long term. Too symbolic of Iraq's subjugation. I think it will be a popular recreation and cultural center myself.

[seafan]

9. Half a billion dollar US Embassy in Iraq almost complete

Well, here it is, people. The half a billion dollar US embassy for Bush's endless occupation of Iraq. Now he can maintain while his henchmen force the Iraqis to give up control of their oil resources and support Bush's geo-strategic staging for the next invasion of a Middle Eastern country that sits on large oil deposits.

While the Iraqis lack power, water, basic sanitation, housing, food, health care and security.


This is absolutely criminal.



AP photo
The 65-acre compound, shown in May, will have its own utilities and sewage systems, commissary and playing fields.

The United States' largest and costliest embassy, a heavily fortified compound in Baghdad with its own power plant and lighted softball field, is on track to be completed next month, on time and within budget.
"We're going to complete it on schedule," said Charles Williams, director of the State Department's overseas building operations. It took two years to build, he said.

The 65-acre compound will be largely a world unto itself, insulated as much as possible from problems that plague the rest of Baghdad.
The facility sits on the banks of the Tigris River in the Green Zone, a walled-off area that houses Iraqi and U.S. offices. The embassy will have a separate set of 9-foot-high concrete walls to protect it against car or truck bombs. Many of the buildings also will have specially made bulletproof doors and windows, Williams said.

Baghdad experiences frequent utility outages, but the compound will have its own power, water and sewage plants.
Diplomats are limited in their ability to move outside the Green Zone because of violence, so the compound has soccer fields and a commissary for shopping, Williams said. The facility has 619 apartments and can accommodate 1,157 workers.
Building the facility in the middle of an insurgency was costly, but Williams said it will not exceed the $592 million budgeted.

.....

The builders, First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting, headquartered in Kuwait, brought in about 2,500 mostly non-Iraqi workers who lived in trailers in the Green Zone.
It was easier than trying to bring locals into the work site, he said. "The Iraqis were difficult to vet," Williams said.

First Kuwaiti has been accused by some former workers of abusive labor practices and housing workers in deplorable conditions at the Baghdad site.
"Foreign workers were packed into trailers very tight," John Owens, a former construction manager at the embassy, told a congressional panel last month. "There was insufficient equipment and basic needs, like shoes and gloves."

.....