Report: Big cuts needed at huge Baghdad embassy Bush built

[babylonsister]

Such a waste, from top to bottom, and from the get-go.


Report: Big cuts needed at huge Baghdad embassy Bush built

By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers


WASHINGTON — The U.S. Embassy in Iraq, the government's largest overseas mission, is significantly overstaffed and needs to be downsized to reflect the reduced American role in the country, according to a new State Department report.

"There is a clear consensus from the top to the bottom of the embassy: The time has come for a significant rightsizing," says the report Wednesday by the department's inspector general.

The report came as President Barack Obama was to meet in Washington with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki.

The meeting takes place against the background of a significantly changed U.S.-Iraqi relationship. American combat troops ceased operations in Iraqi cities on June 30, Maliki's government is being much more assertive and Obama has shifted the attention that his predecessor put on Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In addition to downsizing the embassy, the report also recommends ending the Provincial Reconstruction Teams by 2011, which have been the prime U.S. tool for rebuilding civilian life in Iraq's provinces.

"For some, it (the downsizing) is much overdue as they believe the 'civilian surge' went too far," the report says. "For others, it is a necessary result of the now-changed circumstances in Iraq and in our bilateral relationship."

more...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/72267.html

[gratuitous]

1. A Bush overbought and stuck someone else with the bill?

Stop the presses!

Oh wait; nevermind. Happens all the time. Thank God nobody in the Fourth Estate has the bad taste ever to bring it up to any member of the Bush Crime Family.

[Lasher]

2. All those GOP ideologues, hand picked by the Heritage Foundation, soon looking for work.

What a wonderful prospect.

[Hawkeye-X]

3. Scrap the embassy - sell it to the Iraqis

and build a reasonable embassy. No need for a friggin' palace..

Hawkeye-X

[crickets]

5. Agreed.

[dogtag]

6. Aren't there enough left over palaces

sitting around? Why build a new one?

[babylonsister]

9. Good question. I think the previous admin had hopes of being

there for decades. It's the amount of money spent on this monstrosity that everyone should be angry at. They were so pro-tax cuts, but screwed everyone in other ways.

[RDANGELO]

4. They were building that embassy before Iraq even had a

government. Now that's arrogance. Now, a few years from now, when we are out of there, if Iraq decides not to have diplomatic relations with us, which is not beyond possibilities, all that money will have been waste.

[Lasher]

7. Don't walk under the light fixtures.

One trickle down theory just wasn't enough.

[timeforpeace]

8. Ironies abound. He didn't get to spend a day in it, and also didn't see a drop of Iraq's oil.

[Octafish]

10. Someone's gotta do it.... and make money, while they're at it.

Empires Architecture

[bvar22]

11. The money has already been spent in Iraq.

Baghdad is so Last Administration.

The NEW front is in AfPak.
Time to spend more Billions on another Crusader Castle in Islamabad!
The new project will be even bigger and more expensive than the Castle that Bush Built!



"The White House has asked Congress for — and seems likely to receive — $736 million to build a new U.S. embassy in Islamabad, along with permanent housing for U.S. government civilians and new office space in the Pakistani capital.

The scale of the projects rivals the giant U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which was completed last year after construction delays at a cost of $740 million."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/68952.html

We've always been at war with EastAsia.