McClatchy: Baghdad $740M embassy's fire-fighting system is defective (still)

[babylonsister]

Baghdad embassy's fire-fighting system is defective
By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Friday, January 11, 2008



WASHINGTON — The fire-fighting system in the massive new $740 million U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is defective, according to documents obtained by McClatchy and U.S. officials, who allege that their concerns were ignored or overruled in a rush to declare the complex completed.

"As far as I know, nothing's been fixed," said one State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation for speaking to the news media. "The lives of the people who are working in that building are going to be at stake" if the complex doesn't meet building codes, he said.

Last month, 19 days before he retired, State Department buildings chief Charles E. Williams certified key parts of the embassy's fire-fighting system ready for operation, according to the documents McClatchy obtained.

His own fire-safety specialists and an outside consultant, however, had warned Williams and his aides repeatedly about numerous violations of fire safety codes.

Moreover, Williams' thumbs-up was based on tests run by another contractor that was hired, not by the State Department, but by the company building the embassy, First Kuwaiti General Contracting and Trading Co. State Department officials, members of Congress and others have accused First Kuwaiti of shoddy construction and questionable labor practices.

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/24626.html

[aquart]

1. Serves us right.

[tridim]

2. Everything about this bullshit war is defective

Especially the initiators.

Does anyone really believe the embassy wont be rubble in 5 years?