$600 Million American Embassy in Baghdad the Most Lavish in the World

[spooked]

Does anybody still believe we're leaving Iraq anytime soon?

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/11/langewiesche200711



The Mega-Bunker of Baghdad
The new American Embassy in Baghdad will be the largest, least welcoming, and most lavish embassy in the world: a $600 million massively fortified compound with 619 blast-resistant apartments and a food court fit for a shopping mall.

by William Langewiesche November 2007

"The compound, which will be completed by late fall, is the largest and most expensive embassy in the world, a walled expanse the size of Vatican City, containing 21 reinforced buildings on a 104-acre site along the Tigris River, enclosed within an extension of the Green Zone which stretches toward the airport road. The new embassy cost $600 million to build, and is expected to cost another $1.2 billion a year to run—a high price even by the profligate standards of the war in Iraq."

"Details remain secret, but the essentials are known. The perimeter walls stand at least nine feet high and are made of reinforced concrete strong enough to deflect the blast from mortars, rockets, and car bombs that might detonate outside."

"For the most part, however, the new embassy is not about leaving Iraq, but about staying on—for whatever reason, under whatever circumstances, at whatever cost. As a result the compound is largely self-sustaining, and contains its own power generators, water wells, drinking-water treatment plant, sewage plant, fire station, irrigation system, Internet uplink, secure intranet, telephone center (Virginia area code), cell-phone network (New York area code), mail service, fuel depot, food and supply warehouses, vehicle-repair garage, and workshops. At the core stands the embassy itself, a massive exercise in the New American Bunker style, with recessed slits for windows, a filtered and pressurized air-conditioning system against chemical or biological attack, and sufficient office space for hundreds of staff. Both the ambassador and deputy ambassador have been awarded fortified residences grand enough to allow for elegant diplomatic receptions even with the possibility of mortar rounds dropping in from above."

"The new embassy has tennis courts, a landscaped swimming pool, a pool house, and a bomb-resistant recreation center with a well-equipped gym. It has a department store with bargain prices, where residents (with appropriate credentials) can spend some of their supplemental hazardous-duty and hardship pay. It has a community center, a beauty salon, a movie theater, and an American Club, where alcohol is served. And it has a food court where third-country workers (themselves ultra-thin) dish up a wealth of choices to please every palate. The food is free."

[baldguy]

1. Built by slave labor.

[spooked]

2. Yes, laborers from Bangladesh and Nepal

"The prime contractor is First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting, which for security reasons was not allowed to employ Iraqi laborers, and instead imported more than a thousand workers from such countries as Bangladesh and Nepal. The importation of Third World laborers is a standard practice in Iraq, where the huge problem of local unemployment is trumped by American fears of the local population"

[keep_it_real]

3. Built by slave labor and billions of American Tax Money

But do the majority of Americans have the will and power to change this?

[spooked]

27. Kidnapped - Laborers thought they were going to Dubai!

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/14/5730/06402

"First Kuwaiti has received over a billion dollars in other contracts from the U.S. Army, the Army Corps of Engineers and Halliburton, which hired it as a subcontractor on other projects.

The main whistleblower is a medic named Rory Mayberry, who was contracted by First Kuwaiti to work on the embassy project: Mayberry alleges that when he showed up at the Kuwait airport for his flight into Baghdad, there were 51 Filipino employees of First Kuwaiti also waiting for the same flight — except the Filipinos believed they were going to Dubai."


"The steward was having problems keeping guys in their seats because they were so upset, wanted to get off the airplane," says Mayberry. "They were upset they weren’t headed to Dubai where they were promised they were working."

He says when he arrived in Baghdad he notified the State Department official in charge of the embassy project about what had happened on his flight and she replied "that’s the way they do it."

[Solar_Power]

4. Tax dollars at work

[begin_within]

5. So who gave them title to the land?

[TomInTib]

8. Now THAT'S a good question.

Didn't we hand over "sovereignty" to the Iraqis a couple of years ago?

Or was this 104 acre site exempted?

Goodness, could this possibly be more fucked up?

And who in the world is going to volunteer to work and live (and eat in a "Food Court") there?

[begin_within]

25. I just wonder who owned those 104 acres before the U.S. invaded, and

where are those people now, and what do they think about the U.S. robbing them of their land?

[TomInTib]

26. Now lighten up, bob_

You trying to paint the Good Ol' USA as a bunch of heavy-handed Imperialists.

[ixion]

16. nobody (CPA doesn't count) ... they (we) just 'liberated' it from Iraq

:puke:

[begin_within]

17. a.k.a. "stole it?"

[ixion]

18. yep, just like everything else

we should be so proud.

[bdamomma]

6. nope we are never leaving, can you see our government handing

the embassy over to the Iraqis, yea sure, never will happen.

[Initech]

7. So what purpose will this embassy serve?

Is it so King Douchebag The Third can have a place where he continues to destroy America from somewhere far, far away?

[WinkyDink]

12. It will be, for all intents and purposes, the center of the Iraqi government.

[spooked]

13. Local Iraqis call it "George W's Palace"!

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060703/howl

"Photographers attempting to get pictures of what the locals call "George W's Palace" are confined to using telephoto lenses on this, the largest construction project undertaken by Iraq's American visitors."


The biggest irony of all is how we criticized Saddam for building palaces of his own.

http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/archive/2003-04/a-2003-04-14-4-1.cfm
SADDAM’S PALACES SEIZED

“Lavish.” “Ostentatious.” “Decadent.” These were some of the words used by journalists to describe Saddam Hussein’s palaces. Journalists inspected Baghdad area palaces after they were taken over by forces of the U.S.-led coalition...

[Olney Blue]

9. Insanity.

[WinkyDink]

10. "$1.2 billion a year to run"~~~~~O. M. G. And "no money" for anything here, socially.

[Joe Fields]

11. And no state department official willing to man it.

[Botany]

14. Well American History has some previous examples

the Alamo



Saigon 1975



The Little Bighorn

And from here "we" can oversee the other bases that will help control the oil .....
Operation Iraqi Freedom .... :rofl:

[spooked]

15. More Pictures & Video of the Embassy

And a video on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wHYMX0UYh4


.

[begin_within]

19. Looks more like a prison

[Bigmack]

20. I'm sure the Iranians will be pleased...

when they finally take over.

(Assuming Iran is not a smoking hole.)

My new Iraq withdrawal plan deals with this problem. Blow all the installations and vehicles and assets in place, and fly the troops out.... now.... today. That way, Iran doesn't end up with them.

[htuttle]

21. I hope there's a sign chiseled above the door that says 'I am Ozymandias'...

...just for metaphoric completeness.

[spooked]

22. The REAL reason for the Embassy

Here's a great commentary about the REAL reason behind this fortress "embassy"

http://www.unknownnews.org/0604180414theUSembassy.html

"21 super-secure buildings on 104 heavily-fortified acres. That's six times the size of United Nations headquarters in New York, and ten times the size of a "typical" US embassy.

And they're calling this fortress "the American embassy" -- a lie that's so obviously a lie, it's sickly hilarious.

Does someone expect Iraq to become a tourist trap for Americans?

Will Fallujah and Kirkuk become romantic honeymoon destinations for American newlyweds?

Will so many US tourists will be dancing in Baghdad nightclubs, strolling the streets of Samarra at sunset, that the US will need a virtual city of its own -- almost a dozen times the size of Yankee Stadium -- to process replacements for all the Americans' lost passports and visa problems?

I don't think so, and neither do you.

Who do these jackasses think they're fooling, by calling this enormous walled-in compound for US military officials "the American embassy"? It's the new palace for Iraq's ongoing occupation."

[SalmonChantedEvening]

23. Argh!!!!!!!!!

"It has a department store with bargain prices, where residents (with appropriate credentials)"

Halliburton & Blackwater ID's, I lubs Dubya lapel pins, and Blame Clinton T-shirts?


SCHIP be damned, there's free food!

[NuttyFluffers]

24. WTF, no roller coaster!? no 'Six Flags over Baghdad'?

geez, what a waste... i mean if you're gonna build a useless pleasure palace at least put grotesque emblems of gluttony and irreverance. gonna be evil might as go all the way and none of this half assed modest architecture and shit. divert half the Tigris for a mega water park and 'Hanging Golf Course of Babylon' at least. these people have no imagination.

:sarcasm: (<-- social flag for the humor impaired)

[Kansas Wyatt]

28. Blast resistant? Expecting trouble for years to come are they?

Well that is very telling, considering that the plans would have had to been drawn up when "Mission Accomplished" and greetings with flowers were being parroted over and over again.

[Rex]

29. And, ironically, one day it will be the lavish citadel for whatever faction

takes over Iraq in the future when we leave (which we will do one day).