Empires Architecture

[Octafish]

Your tax dollars and Armed Forces at work...

From the good folks at In These Times:



The U.S. embassy in Iraq stands unfinished in Baghdad.

Empires Architecture

Should it ever be finished, the U.S. embassy in Iraq will stand as a colossal monument to the Bush administration’s failures

By Allen McDuffee

Panic shot through the State Department and White House earlier this summer when the American architecture firm Berger Devine Yaeger posted computer-generated images and layout of the forthcoming U.S. embassy in Baghdad on its website. Ostensibly concerned with security, government officials urgently acted to remove graphics to avoid aiding potential insurgents in their plots to disrupt the embassy’s progress.

The real fear, however, may have been that the disclosure would draw public and congressional attention to everything that’s gone wrong with the embassy. Indeed, it’s difficult to imagine how insurgents could be any more disruptive to the embassy’s existence than those who are building it. Allegations of mismanaged funds, shoddy workmanship, kickback schemes, exploitative labor practices, ill-gotten contracts, blocked investigations, trafficked humans and covered-up deaths have plagued the construction of the world’s largest embassy.

The planned 104-acre, 21-building compound on the Tigris River will include two office buildings, six apartment buildings, a pool, a gym, a movie theater and a food court. The embassy will be supported by its own power and water treatment plants—probably wise in a country that has, on average, one hour to four hours of electricity daily, and where 70 percent of the population lacks clean drinking water.

The White House originally requested $1.3 billion to build the compound, but Congress allocated $592 million for the project in 2005. It was a hefty sum given that the United States didn’t pay a cent to Iraq for the four-square-mile stretch of land in Baghdad’s Green Zone, roughly the size of Vatican City. By comparison, the United States paid $22 million for land that was less than one-tenth that size for a planned new embassy in Beirut, which will now no longer be built because of security concerns over its proximity to a Hezbollah stronghold.

Nevertheless, the nearly $600 million wasn’t enough for the embassy in Iraq. According to documentation provided to Congress by the State Department, an additional $144 million is needed for completion and the embassy may cost as much as $1 billion each year to operate.

CONTINUED...

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3458/empires_architecture/

That oil must be worth an awful lot to Halliburton and Chevron for these warmongering traitors to pay for it with the blood of a million Iraqis and 4,000-plus Americans.

[seemslikeadream]

1. Grunley Walsh LLC of Rockville, Md.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/20821.html





500 INCUBATORS




Lügen Lügen Lügen







http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11635.htm

OCTOBER 9, 2002, VANCOUVER: Dr. Michael Parenti, one of North America's leading radical writers on U.S. imperialism and interventionism, fascism, democracy and the media, spoke to several hundred people at St. Andrews Wesley Church in Vancouver

[Octafish]

3. The Pentagon is the world's largest consumer of petroleum.

http://www.williambowles.info/empire/us_mil_oil.html

A police state does need its police cars.

[Swamp Rat]

2. I bet the dungeon, where people are tortured, is finished.

[Octafish]

6. You know it. AC's blasting in the CO's office, too.

That digital painting is scary-good, Swamp Rat! It even shows the turds' escape route on the Tigris.



Here's how the architects made cost-plus double-plus good:

The Great Iraq Swindle

How Bush Allowed an Army of For-Profit Contractors to Invade the U.S. Treasury

Rollingstone.com
--From Issue 1034
Posted Aug 23, 2007 8:51 AM

How is it done? How do you screw the taxpayer for millions, get away with it and then ride off into the sunset with one middle finger extended, the other wrapped around a chilled martini? Ask Earnest O. Robbins -- he knows all about being a successful contractor in Iraq.

You start off as a well-connected bureaucrat: in this case, as an Air Force civil engineer, a post from which Robbins was responsible for overseeing 70,000 servicemen and contractors, with an annual budget of $8 billion. You serve with distinction for thirty-four years, becoming such a military all-star that the Air Force frequently sends you to the Hill to testify before Congress -- until one day in the summer of 2003, when you retire to take a job as an executive for Parsons, a private construction company looking to do work in Iraq.

Now you can finally move out of your dull government housing on Bolling Air Force Base and get your wife that dream home you've been promising her all these years. The place on Park Street in Dunn Loring, Virginia, looks pretty good -- four bedrooms, fireplace, garage, 2,900 square feet, a nice starter home in a high-end neighborhood full of spooks, think-tankers and ex-apparatchiks moved on to the nest-egg phase of their faceless careers. On October 20th, 2003, you close the deal for $775,000 and start living that private-sector good life.

A few months later, in March 2004, your company magically wins a contract from the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq to design and build the Baghdad Police College, a facility that's supposed to house and train at least 4,000 police recruits. But two years and $72 million later, you deliver not a functioning police academy but one of the great engineering clusterfucks of all time, a practically useless pile of rubble so badly constructed that its walls and ceilings are literally caked in shit and piss, a result of subpar plumbing in the upper floors.

You've done such a terrible job, in fact, that when auditors from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction visit the college in the summer of 2006, their report sounds like something out of one of the Saw movies: "We witnessed a light fixture so full of diluted urine and feces that it would not operate," they write, adding that "the urine was so pervasive that it had permanently stained the ceiling tiles" and that "during our visit, a substance dripped from the ceiling onto an assessment team member's shirt." The final report helpfully includes a photo of a sloppy brown splotch on the outstretched arm of the unlucky auditor.

CONTINUED...

URL: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16076312/the_great_iraq_swindle

¡Feliz año nuevo, Compay! Paz, salud y to'lo mejor a Ustedes.

[bobthedrummer]

4. "A U.S. Fortress Rises in Baghdad: Asian Workers Trafficked

to Build World's Largest Embassy" by David Phinney (CorpWatch 10-17-2006)
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14173

[Octafish]

13. How the Baghdad Embassy Was Built - Forced Labor and Worker Abuse

Gee. Bushco doesn't like unions.

More from Mr. Phinney:

How the Baghdad Embassy Was Built:

Forced Labor and Worker Abuse

By DAVID PHINNEY
CounterPunch June 1, 2007

In the months following September 2005, complaints began coming in to the US State Department that all was not well with its most ambitious project ever: a sprawling new embassy project on the banks of the ancient Tigris River. The largest, most heavily-fortified embassy in the world with over 20 buildings, it spans 104 acres-- comparable in size to the Vatican.

Soon after the State Department awarded $592-million building contract to First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting in July 2005, thousands of low-paid migrant workers recruited from South Asia, the Philippines and other nations poured into Baghdad, beginning work to build the gargantuan complex within two years time. But sources involved in the embassy project tell Slogger that during First Kuwaiti's rush to the finish the project by this summer on schedule, American managers and specialists involved with the project began protesting about the living and working conditions of lower-paid workers sequestered and largely unseen behind security walls bordering the embassy project inside the US-controlled Green Zone.

The Americans protested that construction crews lived in crowded quarters; ate sub-standard food; and had little medical care. When drinking water was scarce in the blistering heat, coolers were filled on the banks of the Tigris, a river rife with waterborne disease, sewage and sometimes floating bodies, they said. Others questioned why First Kuwaiti held the passports of workers. Was it to keep them from escaping? Some laborers had turned up "missing" with little investigation. Another American said laborers told him they were been misled in their job location. When recruited, they were unaware they were heading for war-torn Iraq.

After hearing similar allegations during much of 2006, Howard J. Krongard, the State Department's inspector general, flew to Baghdad for what he describes as a "brief" review on Sept. 15. He now reports that the complaints had no substance.

"Nothing came to our attention," he wrote in a nine-page memorandum posted recently on the State Department's Web site. More importantly, after interviewing an unstated number of workers from the Philippines, India, Nepal and Pakistan, Krongard said no evidence was found of labor smuggling, trafficking or other abuses. Krongard makes no mention of an ongoing investigation by the US Justice Department of First Kuwaiti and others for such alleged practices and other matters.

One former labor foreman at the embassy site who recently read Krongard's review called it "bull shit." Another former First Kuwaiti employee viewed it as "a whitewash."

Meanwhile, Justice Department trial attorneys Andrew Kline and Michael J. Frank with the civil rights division have been contacting former First Kuwaiti employees and others for interviews and documents, but declined to comment on the investigation other than to say they are looking into allegations of labor trafficking.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/phinney06012007.html

Like any well-oiled racket, Bushco doesn't like any organization other than its own. It might breed competition.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

5. Why is this referred to as an Embassy ffs?

It is the Emperor's new palace from which they will rule their oil supplies.

[Octafish]

14. Shanghai'd, the workers didn't like the trip over, either.

See and hear the story from Congress' perfpective:

Iraq Embassy Oversight Hearing: I believe these men were kidnapped by First Kuwaiti to work at the US Embassy…

By: Logan Murphy on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 at 11:58 AM - PDT Henry Waxman held oversight hearings on the construction of the US Embassy

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/26/iraq-embassy-oversight-hearing-i-believe-these-men-were-kidnapped-by-first-kuwaiti-to-work-at-the-us-embassy%E2%80%A6/

Lovely people, the Bushes and Cheneys. Lovely.

[baldguy]

21. A more accurate word is "slave"

[HCE SuiGeneris]

24. Holy crap that is disturbing.

And totally believable coming from the ass-wipes that have installed themselves in the WH.

[Kurovski]

7. K&R

and thank you, Octafish.

[Octafish]

25. Subtopia: A Field Guide to Military Urbanism

The Internets really is an amazing set of tubes:

http://subtopia.blogspot.com/2007/12/peripheral-militurb-21.html?s=ba63be7947d59117936a2ad9ae73651e&

Most importantly: You're welcome, Kurovski! Happy New Year to You and Yours!

[leftchick]

8. more photos of Our Tax Dollars at work building Imperial Amerika

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/29/photos-embassy-iraq/



The U.S. embassy is likely to create even greater Iraqi resentment toward the U.S. occupation. While Americans will be living in posh quarters, the citizens of Baghdad are forced to survive with just 5.6 hours of electricity a day. Baghdad was also recently rated the world’s worst city in which to live.

UPDATE: The residence of the U.S. ambassador to Iraq will be 16,000 square feet. The deputy chief of mission in Iraq will have a “cozy cottage” measuring 9,500 square feet.

[Octafish]

27. Eyeballing the US Embassy Baghdad

A portion of the new U.S. embassy under construction is seen from across the Tigris river in Baghdad, Saturday, May 19, 2007. The new $592 million embassy occupies a chunk of prime Baghdad real estate two-thirds the size of Washington's National Mall, with desk space for about 1,000 people behind high, blast-resistant walls. The compound is a symbol both of how much the United States has invested in Iraq and how the circumstances of U.S. involvement are changing. (AP Photo)

The devil's in the details:

http://eyeball-series.org/usemb-iq/usemb-iq.htm

[leftchick]

31. nothing ever really gets "pulled" from the internet

excellent photos Octafish! :)

[Quantess]

32. And that's a good thing!

[flordehinojos]

9. house the bushit library in the u.s.a.embassy in iraq.let all the republicons who've supported his

invasion/occupation of that country travel there to visit their bushit boy's library rooms!

[Octafish]

28. Would you like to make 50-200K working in exotic locations all around the world?

With his aversion to truth and his attempts to bury FOIA, Smirko's pretzeldental lie-bury seems like the last place he'd want to be.

Perhaps there is one place, while Bush is underqualified, he and his neocon sycophants can find work:

Would you like to make 50 to 200 Thousand a year or more, working in exotic locations all around the world?

Then Welcome Job Seekers and Active Civilian Contractors To Civilian Contractor Jobs.com®, The Premier Source For Information On High Paying International Civilian Contractor Jobs

At Civilian Contractor Jobs.com, we have the best resources for people looking for International Civilian Contractor Jobs, Jobs in Iraq, Overseas Jobs, War Zone Jobs, High Risk Civilian Contractor Jobs, Professional Adventurer Jobs and Civilian Security Contractor Jobs

Here you will find the biggest list of International Contractors, the best advice and insider information written by people with first hand experience. We Have Civilian Contractor Jobs from all over the world, bus drivers and security to Information Technology and management to blue collar and white collar, college degree to GED!

http://www.civiliancontractorjobs.com/

Perhaps one day even crazy drunken coke-whore traitors can apply.

[Quantess]

10. Here's a well deserved recommendation #5

Great thread so far!

[annabanana]

11. If the only people left guarding it are Halliburton & KBR

Will the Iraqis "fight them there" so we don't have to fight them here?

[formercia]

12. Junior needs a palace from whence to rule the World

Just like his 'Daddy' intended.

Worthy digs to escape the wrath of the Hague.

This administration has become something like a villainous organization from a James Bond novel.

[mod mom]

15. I think BFEE has their sites on Paraguay. It has it all...

water, drugs, oil, moonies and a large military base:

The Cuban news service reports that George W. Bush has purchased 98,840 acres in Paraguay, near the Bolivian/Brazilian border.

Jenna Bush paid a secret diplomatic visit to Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte and U.S. Ambassador James Cason. There were no press conferences, no public sightings and no official confirmation of her 10-day trip which apparently ended this week.

Immediately afterwards, 500 heavily armed U.S. troops arrived with various planes, choppers and land vehicles at Mariscal Estigarribia air base, which happens to be at the northern tip of Paraguay near the Bolivian/Brazilian border. More have reportedly arrived since then.

What the hell, after the jump. Plus a BREAKING UPDATE involving, of course, The Moonies!

-snip

http://wonkette.com/politics/george-w.-bush/we-hate-to-bring-up-the-nazis-but-they-fled-to-south-america-too-208549.php

Nevertheless, national Senator Domingo Laino sees a different pattern in Moon's acquisitions. "There are two principal branches to Moon's interest in Paraguay," he said, "control of the largest fresh drinking water source in the world and control of the narcotics business", which is so prevalent in this area.
(Emphasis added.) Y'think Poppy and Dubya want a piece of the action?

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/10/bush-in-paraguay-update.html

[formercia]

17. Extradition

I read somewhere where the government of Paraguay would not protect Junior in case of criminal prosecution.

I don't think Poppy would be wise to go there either since arrest warrants have been issued for Dirty War suspects and even though his name was not on the list, it may be soon.

[mod mom]

18. he's not exactly loved in the Middle East either. Where ever he goes, he will spend

the rest of his life isolated and looking over his shoulder. He sure hasn't won the hearts and minds of the world now, has he?

[formercia]

20. A prison without walls

where there's a million inmates who would love their pound of flesh.

[mod mom]

22. The scoundrel deserves REAL justice! Living a life of luxury even in a self imposed prison

is NOT ENOUGH. They need to drag his sorry lazy ass up to the Hague and dish out some real justice for all those he violated.

[formercia]

26. Fair and due process

He can spend his sunset years comparing notes with other geocidists and War criminals at the prison in the Hague.

[leftchick]

33. Consider This: "Iraqi government: monthly food rations will be cut by half "

I am sure Iraqis are loving the Imperialists right about now. :grr:

Saddam Provided More Food to Iraqis Than the U.S.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/71864

By Dahr Jamail and Ahmed Ali, IPS News
Posted on December 28, 2007, Printed on January 4, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/71864/

The Iraqi government announcement that monthly food rations will be cut by half has left many Iraqis asking how they can survive. The government also wants to reduce the number of people depending on the rationing system by five million by June 2008.

Iraq's food rations system was introduced by the Saddam Hussein government in 1991 in response to the UN economic sanctions. Families were allotted basic foodstuffs monthly because the Iraqi Dinar and the economy collapsed.

The sanctions, imposed after Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Kuwait, were described as "genocidal" by Denis Halliday, then UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq. Halliday quit his post in protest against the U.S.-backed sanctions.

The sanctions killed half a million Iraqi children, and as many adults, according to the UN. They brought malnutrition, disease, and lack of medicines. Iraqis became nearly completely reliant on food rations for survival. The programme has continued into the U.S.-led occupation.

But now the U.S.-backed Iraqi government has announced it will halve the essential items in the ration because of "insufficient funds and spiralling inflation."

The cuts, which are to be introduced in the beginning of 2008, have drawn widespread criticism. The Iraqi government is unable to supply the rations with several billion dollars at its disposal, whereas Saddam Hussein was able to maintain the programme with less than a billion dollars.

[slipslidingaway]

16. K&R Why do they hate us? n/t

[ToeBot]

19. iirc, the Iraq embassy was the one project that was purported to be on-track and in-budget...

(nbd, considering the size of the budget). I shouldn't be surprised that it was another stinking lie.

[Javaman]

23. Everytime I hear about that colossal waste of money, I always get this thought...

it's the image of a concrete wall that is so poorly constructed that one could put their finger through it.

[flashl]

29. As Iraqi citizens experiences ...

rolling electricity blackouts, fuel rationing, and diarrhea and cholera outbreak that’s spread by contaminated water or food.

Great post. K&R

[goforit]

30. A huge target for our enemies. Yes, a huge waste of our money.