For all the eternal optimists out there who think the Iraq
War won't last much longer because the situation there has been getting
some better since the last big troop deployment, please read this
article and then ask yourself if it sounds like the U.S.has any
intention of pulling out anytime soon,.....if ever!!!!
Maybe John McCain knows something we don't
when he said he was willing to stay in Iraq for 100 years if necessary.
From the sound of this ariticle his statement might not have been so far
fetched. ---Mary (webmaster)
Building work at the 104-acre
complex, known locally as 'George Bush's Palace',is supposed to be
secret, but it is impossible to disguise the cranes dominating the
Baghdad skyline. The new United States Embassy in Iraq was scheduled to
cost 592 million dollars to build and will be the largest
embassy on earth. However, due to delays for various reasons, mainly
shoddy work by the mostly Asian workers that were imported to do the
work at near slave wages, the cost has soared way beyond that figure. To mention just a few of the many problems that has slowed down constrution was a fire sprinkler system that didn't work, when it was turned on some of the joints broke, some of the wiring melted down, and the workers failed to build a blast proof wall. The
estimated final construction cost is now over 700 million dollars. and will cost
more than a billion dollars a year to maintain. It will essentially be a
small city, with office buildings, a future school, six apartment
buildings, and a recreation building with a gym, exercise room, the
American Club, a commissary, food court, movie theater, tennis courts,
barber and beauty shops.
Computerized image of one of the embassy's pools by the designer of the embassy project.
It will also have the largest swimming pool in Iraq as well
as its own electrical power plants and water plants. There will be a
1,500 embassy staff including 1,000 Americans and 500 Iraqi foreign
service nationals. The office buildings will be large enough to handle
up to 8,000 workers.
Vatican City
The project is so huge that it will be equal in size to
Vatican City.
U.S. Beijing Embassy
In contrast, the Beijing
embassy that opened in 2008, had previously been described as the
"largest single construction project undertaken by the Department of
State on foreign soil". It is ten acres, compared to Iraq's 104 acres.
According to the
U.K. Times, the Iraqi people call this "George W's Palace". In the
Baghdad cafes, they "moan that the structure is bigger than anything
Saddam Hussein ever built" and are "interested in knowing whether the US
State Department paid for the prime real estate or simply took it. For
the record the land was given to them by the Iraqi government.
One of Saddam Hussein's many presidential palaces
They are angry
about the size of the embassy and that it will have its own power and
water facilities, while they still wait for the day when they will reach
pre-war levels of electricity and clean water.
Iraqis digging for water
Many Iraqis, like this woman, are still without
electricity
After almost four
years, the Americans still can't turn on the lights for the Iraqis, but
that won't be a problem for the embassy staffers. The same with the
toilets, they will always flush on command. All services for the biggest
embassy in the world will operate independently from the rattletrap
utilities of the Iraqi capital
Electric power plant
Imagine the message we are sending to the Iraqi people and how this
embassy can be used as an Al Qaeda recruiting tool. Along with the
military bases, this shows the United States intends to have a
substantial long-term presence in Iraq. The International Crisis Group
said the embassy's size "is seen by Iraqis as an indication of who
actually exercises power in their country". "Infidels in the holy land"
has always been a major problem for Islamic fundamentalists. How will
they react to the United States essentially creating a small city on the
banks of the Tigris River?
The Tigris River
Certainly this embassy could
become a prime target for future terrorist attacks. This will put our
employees in danger and create huge security costs. At home, we also
have to ask what kind of message we are sending to American citizens.
FEMA has closed its office in New
Orleans while much of the city is still in ruins and in need of massve
re-construction. At a time when our country is running huge deficits and
cutting programs for the poor, is it a good use of our resources to
operate such a huge facility In Iraq?
This is one of Saddam Hussein's palaces and was used as the U.S American Embassy while the new one was being built . The embassy had 1,000 employees and the 2005 operating cost was about $1 billion, is this an indicator of how much this new embassy will cost in the future? How effective will our diplomacy be if we start out by angering the Iraqi people with the huge scale of this project?
And, as former Iraq ambassador
Edward L. Peck observed, "the embassy is going to have people hunkered
behind sandbags. I don't know how you can conduct diplomacy that
way."
John Brown, former foreign
service officer, said it best. "Why should the new embassy in Iraq be so
large in the first place? Are thousands of Americans holed up in
'Emerald City' really a way to assist the 'new Iraq'? Couldn't a
smaller, leaner, and better prepared embassy with a well defined mission
do a more efficient job? And wouldn't a more modestly sized embassy
communicate an important message that the Bush administration is
supposedly trying to bring home to the new Iraqi government and the
local population; that the fate of their country is in their hands, not
in those of occupying forces."?
The U. S. State Department Building in Washington, D. C.
The State
Department is in charge of diplomacy. They are charged with
understanding the local culture and customs and to promote good will
with the host country. With this embassy` we are getting off on the
wrong foot.The Embassy was supposed to open in June, 2007, but because
of inferior work that date has been moved forward several times, it is
now scheduled to officially open sometime in 2008. Due to sub standard
wiring there have been several fires at the embassy.
The Embassy is surrounded by a high
fifteen foot thick wall, and in size is comparable to the National Mall
of America in Washington D.C.
National Mall in Washington D.C.
At a time when most Iraqis
are enduring blackouts of up to 22 hours a day, the site is floodlighted
by night so work can continue around the clock.
It will come as less than a surprise
to learn that this project was subbed out to an outfit in Kuwait. The
Chicago Tribune says that for security reasons, the new embassy is being
built entirely by imported labor.
Asian Workers
The contractor, First Kuwaiti
General Trading and Contracting Co., which was linked to
human-trafficking allegations by a Chicago Tribune investigation last
year, has hired a work force of 900 mostly Asian workers who live on the
site." In a land where half the population is out of work the United
States ought to win countless native hearts and minds with this labor
policy. Doubtless the cooks, janitors and serving staff attending to the
Americans' needs and comforts in this establishment, will not be Iraqis
either.
Home office of Knight Ridder (sold in June, 2006 to the McClatchy Company)
In 2006, Knight Ridder, one of the most respected newspaper
chains in America, reported: "US officials here [in Baghdad] greet
questions about the site with a curtness that borders on hostility.
Reporters are referred to the State Department in Washington, which
declined to answer questions for security reasons." Photographers
attempting to get pictures of "George W's Palace" are confined to using
telephoto lenses on this, the largest construction project undertaken by
Iraq's American visitors. ( This explains why the photos of the embassy
on this page aren't of a very good quality.)
Just a part of this vast compound, I'm not sure but this may be the apartment buildings. We're just not being told anything yet, it's been a hush hush secret project from the git-go.
This picture is of another part of the embassy, being guarded by a Marine (computerized image)
Nonetheless, we know much of what is going on
in the place, where there will soon be twenty-one buildings, 619
apartments with very fancy digs for the big shots, restaurants, shops,
gym facilities, the biggest swimming pool in Iraq, a food court, a
beauty salon, a movie theater (we can't say if it's a multiplex) and, as
the Times of London reports, "a swish club for evening functions." This
should be ideal for announcing the various new milestones marking the
trudge of the Iraqi people toward democracy and freedom.
Since the embassy is designed to be
entirely self-sufficient and won't be dependent on Iraq's unreliable
public utilities there will be no reason or excuse for any of the
thousands of Americans working in this space, which is about the size of
eighty football fields, to share the daily life experience of an Iraqi
or even come in accidental contact with one.
Can you imagine an area 80 times the size of this football field? ---Whew, now that's BIG!!!!!
This gigantic complex does not square with the repeated
assertions by the people who run the American government that the United
States will not stay in the country after Iraq becomes a stand-alone,
democratic entity. An "embassy" in which 8,000 people labor, along with
the however many thousands of military personnel necessary to defend
them, is not a diplomatic outpost. It is a base, a
permanent base! To any thinking
person it should be obvious that the U.S. plans to remain in Baghdad and
run the country. To me this is beyond lunacy
Army guards at the Embassy
When this place is finally completed and
fully operational there will be 8,000 Americans holed up in a private
city, who do not dare to leave their fortified luxury bunker for fear of
being killed or kidnapped and tortured if caught outside their fortified
walls, and who are trying to run the country by giving orders to the
Iraqi government, which is also operating out of the Green Zone, that
vast fortified place isolated from the people of the country.
Rocket and mortar attack on Green Zone in 2008
This large heavily guarded
area is certainly not safe from violence. There have been repeated
rocket and mortar attacks on it by Shiite militia groups, and there is
no reason at this point to believe these attacks will cease,
Democrats demanding an exit strategy from Iraq are routinely derided by
the Bush Administration as cowards who "cut and run." But if this
Embassy plan is not a form of cut and run, what is it? Instead of
cutting and making a run for Kuwait, they intend to cut and run into
what amounts to the world's largest bunker, a capacious rat hole where
they can wait in safety until all the Iraqis have killed one another or
all factions unite, march on this air-conditioned citadel and slit the
throats of its irrelevant inhabitants. This is not a pleasant scenario
and it may never happen, but the possibility that it could is a very
real one.
A WORD FROM THE WEBMASTER
Web Page by Mary Jones
March,
2008
The State Department finally took possession of the new Iraq Embassy on April 14, 2008. However they are having a hard time getting enough volunteer diplomats to agree to move into the new building because the heavily fortified Green Zone has been attacked so much lately by Shiite Militia Groups that the area is no longer considered safe. There is actually speculation that diplomats will have to be drafted to fill the required number that is needed.. And now I have learned that there isn't enough room to house all the diplomats and other embassy workers who will be living in the new embassy. Among other things they are considering making a lot of the apts. into two units instead of one.. The reason the Government gives for the problem is that the need for additional diplomats and other important jobs has more than doubled since the embassy was designed in 2005. Diplomats and other workers have been living in aluminum trailers in the Green Zone until the Embassy was ready to be occupied. Now it seems it could be as late at next year before it is fully operational. The people living in the trailers are demanding to have new trailers with fortified roofs that will better withstand mortar and rocket attacks as the trailers they are living in now are of little if any protection. Recently everyone who ventures outside in the Green Zone has been ordered to wear body armor and other protective gear. The government has recently ordered the cots in the trailers be moved back into Saddam Husseins Republican Palace nearby, no-one is to sleep in the trailers. The palace has been the U.S. embassy while the new one was being built and most of the embassy staffers are still living there. It is doubtful the trailers will be replaced with safer ones as they were meant to be temporary until the new embasy was ready to move into. It is uncertain how long these new problems will delay the completion of the embassy.This new modern day monstrosity has been one big inexcusable mess almost from day one and now there is yet another setback. There needs to be an impartial investigation into this matter to find out who is to blame for all the mistakes and delays, and why it was allowed by our government to happen, sure sounds like some hanky panky involved to me. ---Mary Jones
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