16
May
America’s Vatican City-sized Baghdad embassy is too small
Among the less subtle hints about US long-term plans for Iraq are the massive, permanent military bases there and the Brobdignagian new US embassy in the Green Zone. No one, including congressional Democrats, ever talks about the bases, but Al Kamen has some details about the embassy in today’s Washington Post.
For all those who keep whining about how the government can’t do anything right, we’re happy to report that the massive New Embassy Compound in Baghdad, the biggest U.S. embassy on earth, is going to be completed pretty much as scheduled in August.
The bad news is that it appears it’s not going to have enough housing for all the employees who’ll be moving to the 27-building complex on a 104-acre tract of land — about the size of the Vatican, two-thirds the size of the Mall — within the Green Zone.
The housing shortage is a problem because outside the embassy there are quite literally no safe places to live, even in the Green Zone.
The State Department last month suggested that all US personnel living and working in the area wear flak jackets and helmets when outside blast-proof buildings, including while frequenting restaurants and other facilities. For many US employees there, the stricture would seem to apply to the trailers used for overflow housing, which are vulnerable to the mortar and rocket fire that regularly targets the Green Zone.
“Worst of all,” says Kamen, “there’s no provision for rooms for congressional delegations or other distinguished guests coming to shop in the famed markets.”
Fortunately, the US ambassador and his deputy won’t be feeling the housing crunch. “[US Ambassador Ryan] Crocker’s home in the NEC — which one source said was about 16,000 square feet — is expected to be ready. Ditto deputy chief of mission Daniel Speckhard’s cottage, which is a cozy 9,500 square feet.”
Seems fair, really; if you can’t go outside without risking your life, you need a house big enough to accommodate a jogging track.
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You sure it’s not a hotel? What with the security issues in the green zone and all, it could probably charge a pretty penny. It’d probably pay for itself like the oil fields are paying for the war.
May 16th, 2007 at 11:30 amI’m pretty sure the oil is paying for the war, just not the U.S. end of it. By golly, Wolfowitz was right!
May 16th, 2007 at 12:10 pmmullah cimoc say usa media so control for keep ameriki people so stupid.
iraq war big blurring for ameriki. not the good news coverage. this making ameirki stupid and the ignorant.
please remember: him iraki having the two gonad. for this him never stop the fighting.
him israeli controlling all usa people for kill the muslim for him master in tel aviv. neocon so many spy for israeli.
now ameriki so destroy, rotting from the inside out. ameriki woman the slut and take the LBT (low back tattoo).
son of ameriki him the homosexual loving sex with the iraq shia homosexual. wife the lesbian. kill abortion all baby. not the children from the woman. her having only the dog and cat.
for learning how ameriki become the so stupid read the two book:
a man called intrepid, by him william stevenson
inside the company, a cia diary by him phillip agee.
this book teach ameriki basic technique of the mind control.
stop1984now@yahoo.com
May 16th, 2007 at 2:13 pm